Thank god we’re finally done with that long, dreadful weekend of face-to-face reunions and the terrifying embrace of home and hearth, right? I’m thrilled to be back in the realm of the daily grind and regular blog updates and, what’s more, listening to new music for the first time in a while. I bought several new(ish) albums for my Thanksgiving weekend drive: Volcano Choir’s Unmap, Neon Indian’s Psychic Chasms, Bear in Heaven’s Beast Rest Forth Mouth, and Memory Tapes’ Seek Magic.

I realize none of these are the freshest, most cutting-edge musics out there right now, but the older I get the less concerned I am with any of that, and besides, the edgiest bands out there are so obscure, they don’t have names or even MySpaces yet! I just started a new band while I was writing that sentence and we’re playing our first show as soon as I alert the other members upon figuring out who they are.

So far my favorite of these new acquisitions is Bear in Heaven, which isn’t entirely surprising since they incorporate lots of synths and their drummer is lethal. Another secret to their success might lie with their name; bands with Bear in the name seem to do pretty well. The band I formed in the previous paragraph will be called Bear Wolf Iver On The Radio.

Bear In Heaven’s new album is called Beast Rest Forth Mouth, which, I don’t know, strikes me as kind of a dumb title. It smacks of laziness when a band, album, or song name resembles several random words thrown together. But maybe I don’t know the whole story! And the music is really good, so who cares what your album is called? Please don’t be mad at me, Bear in Heaven!

Hurry up and listen to this song; it’ll make your day better.

Update: I sometimes remind my blogging students to be judicious in the snark they dispense online, since every once in a while the target of your oh-so-clever nastiness might contact you out of the blue. In my case, Hometapes founder Adam Heathcott, a very nice man, wrote me an email explaining: “Beast Rest Forth Mouth is a mnemonic for the four directions of the compass: East West North South.” So, not random at all. Sorry for being a dick, folks!