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Good Morning to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to delve deeply into one of this weekend’s most intriguing new LP releases, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! While Jessy Lanza will be releasing her ‘DJ-Kicks’ compilation this week and Kaytranada will be releasing his ‘Intimated’ EP today, new albums from the likes of Elbow and Deap Vally are likely to get overshadowed this week by the media attention that the week’s heavy-hitter, Adele, will be receiving from the release of her new album ’30’. Therefore, I’ve decided to provide another alternative option for you to explore this weekend. ‘And Everybody Smiles Back’ is the highly anticipated debut studio album from the Croydon-formed indie rock group Bears In Trees, who have been signed to the Boston-based label Counter Intuitive Records. With a large social media following of over 100,000 followers on Instagram and over 20,000 via Twitter, the band are seemingly poised for bigger things in the near future. The project is led by producer George Berry, who graduated from the Academy Of Contemporary Music with a first class honours degree in Professional Music Production. He’s joined by bassist/lead vocalist Ian Gillespie, classically trained flautist Callum Litchfield and songwriter/guitarist Nick Peters, who runs the majority of the band’s social media pages. Having just embarked on their long-delayed debut headline UK tour and supported NOAHFINNCE on a previous tour, Bears In Trees are keeping proceedings fresh by developing their new record as a concept album which tells stories of the day after the best or worst day in a person’s life, and each of the songs featured on the LP tells anecdotes being pulled from the band’s actual lives. Speaking about the unique concept, Nick Peters says, “In films and TV series, the plot line ends on the best or worst days of someone’s life and that we never really get to see the day after”, adding, “I think it’s important because the day after is where the healing and compassion happen”, in a press statement. Let’s check out their recent single, ‘Little Cellist’, below.

Commenting on ‘Little Cellist’, Iain Gillespie says: “This is a story about me and a good friend of mine. She plays Cello. She found me in a god-awful state, which finally began my treatment journey for my mental health”, describing, “I was lying on the floor of the student union building; me finally opening up to her allowed her to open up to me and we became each other’s shoulder to cry on, and she kept me safe during some very hard times”, in Bears In Trees’ press release. Bridging Spoken Word sections and poetry with a more conventional Indie Folk template, ‘Little Cellist’ is a narrative-driven tale about seeking hope and purpose through a common experience, with lyrics like “She often held in her intrusive thoughts for fear/That the weight of her worries was too much for him to hear” that discuss difficulty in speaking your mind truthfully, in the way that Brits do as we say what we don’t mean in terms of dialect. Later refrains, like “She quelled her anxiety to calm her fading friend” and “The ambulance rolled up like his limousine/To take him to a place where he reigned supreme”, mix a sense of whimsicality with more hard-hitting content in terms of narrating the story. The instrumentation is kept rather simple and concise, as floating Piano lines and brief String sections provide a slightly cinematic, uplifted underlayer to the rustic, heartfelt acoustic guitar melodies. The Spoken Word sections feel intriguing, as they provide a dream-like feel to undercut the set-up for the narrative and ensure some more variety to the songwriting. The lyrics are nice and easy, with a clear theme being communicated by a blend of poetry and contemporary Indie Rock production. Later lyrics like “Even Jesus Christ himself needed help to bear his cross/Please feel free to lean on me if the world becomes too much” tend to go darker in tone, recited with a delivery that reminds me of Jarvis Cocker in its mix of sardonic wit and emotional storytelling. When all of these parts are merged together, you get some story-based indie rock that feels crowd-pleasing and accessible, yet feels a little more complex in practice than your average release. Therefore, it feels like a sensible choice for a single. Overall, this was an engaging blend of sardonic storytelling and spoken poetry that carries a similar message to other mental health-based tracks, yet it still sets itself apart well enough because there’s an individual personality behind it.

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That’s everything that I’ve got planned for today on the blog! Thank you very much for your support, and I’ll be back tomorrow to continue leading you through our ‘Countdown To Christmas’ series on the site. If you check it out, you’ll be treated to an alternative festive single from a Scottish indie folk band who were active until 2018, where the lead singer was presumed to have sadly lost his life after going missing. However, they were known for their work with the Invisible Children coalition project.

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