Friday 12/23
Bear’s Den - Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Why this is the best album to exist especially during the holidays
Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Red Earth and Pouring Rain is poetic, emotive, gushy, and argumentatively one of the best indie/folk/alternative/badass albums to ever exist. It will forever be my number one album especially during the holidays. It just makes sense. If you know, you know.
Red Earth and Pouring Rain starts off with, okay you guessed it, Red Earth and Pouring Rain. Okay, if I have to type that name one more time, I’m taking my opinion back. Haha. With a retro 80s vibe, the first two songs on the album most definitely sound like a movie soundtrack. You know, the one where the boy is holding the speaker outside of the girl's window and wins her heart. When I hit play on this track, I wholeheartedly expect for there to be yellow and orange crunchy leaves on the ground and a slight breeze outside. As soon as the third track hits, Dew on the Vine, I’m usually cheesing pretty big. Only because I don’t know how to process the sad break-up lyrics that’s pulling on my heart strings. Making it to the fourth song on the album, Roses on a Breeze, a personal favorite, is everything you’d hope. It’s a tear jerker. It’s sentimental. It’s catchy. It’s so f#$%ing sad. The kind of sad that’s nothing less than beautifully relatable.
There seems to be a few biblical references on this record. For instance, New Jerusalem, Auld Wives, Greenwoods Bethlehem, Broken Parable.. Etc. This band metaphorically connects the loss of love and hope with old passages from the big book. Something I don’t hear of too often from a band who doesn’t focus on religion.
Bear’s Den has the most subtle and delicately whimsical instrumentals that catch you off guard. Love Can’t Stand Alone is a testament to that. With a hint of a banjo and a dash of groove, this indie band introduced me to an entirely different genre that completely changed the way I connect to not only the lyricism of a song or a band, but the way I connect with the instruments.
Second to last on the album is Gabriel and believe me when I tell you this song speaks for itself. It speaks volumes. It speaks loneliness and it gives you the same chill that a slight holiday breeze does.
“It’s not just a shadow, but a life I left behind
The person I am, yet most despise
Is this all I am and all I ever was?
All that he has won, is all that I have lost”
Is this what an emotional out of body experience feels like?! I just want to hover above the Earth and hear the oceans cry out these melodies to my broken heart. *Enter crying emoji here* This album ends with the spectacular and heartfelt, Napoleon, and I’d expect nothing less from these guys. Though this album is something I play quite often, it is the best during the holidays. Some of us are lonely. The “I'm okay with this feeling” kind of lonely and there is nothing that resonates more with my soul than Red Earth and Pouring Rain. So come on metalheads, swap out the screams for sobs. You won’t regret it. Now is the best time.