Send "Minus The Bear " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Absolutepunk |
 Oooh baby, turn down the lights and turn up the bass. It’s about to get dangerously sexy all up in here with Minus The Bear’s latest album (and Dangerbird Records debut), the funktastic Omni. Basically, this is the story of how Minus The Bear got their groove back after the lukewarm reaction to 2007’s Planet Of Ice, arguably their worst effort to date. And from the very first notes of opener, “My Time,” you immediately hear the difference. Featuring a synthesizer barrage of noise, “My Time” is taking you into the bedroom and dimming the lights. “Summer Angel” is a little bit gentler than the preceding track, bringing out more of Minus The Bear’s smooth rock sound. Guitarists Jake Snider and Dave Knudson emphasize the dark and furious nature of “Secret Country,” as their guitar work lends to the controlled chaos that is the bridge. After getting your hormones pumping with the first four tracks, the band switches it down with the slow-burning “Excuses,” as Snider calmly states, “running out of excuses/when we know what the truth is/I’m into you/I’m into you/when you hear this song/you’ll say you knew all along/you’re into me too.” The track appears at just the right time on Omni, setting the tone for the middle (and best) portion of the album....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| From the crystal strains of "Pachuca Sunrise" to the digital stutter of "Knights," Seattle rocksters Minus the Bear's music has always been about matching polished pop appeal with smart mechanics and a (mostly) refreshingly straightforward indie-rock angle—the ingredients for mainstream success in most cases, but frustratingly not so for this quintet, who have skidded beneath the music-consuming public's consciousness and have yet to surface to any chart-topping daylight. Perhaps in response to their surprising lack of recognition, Minus the Bear has turned decidedly more white bread for their fourth album, Omni, with, of all things, the catchy, sonic cheesiness of '80s Top 40 starting to emerge from their complex, staccatoed melodies. It is, perhaps, a natural progression, considering the smooth allure of leadman Jake Snider's voice, the readymade hooks in the band's music, and the indie genre's already-ingrained predisposition toward everything '80s. Yet despite its overt feints toward the mainstream, the mellow, white-boy pop funkiness works well for Minus the Bear. As unsurprising, unchallenging, and fangless as Omni sometimes is, it presents a band that has found a confident and comfortable groove. The album retains an odd, dated quality that suggests Minus the Bear is mimicking the icons of their youth rather than following their peers' inclinations. Snider admirably channels the husky cool of "Sledgehammer"-era Peter Gabriel on "Fooled by the Night," chanting the lyrical mouthful of "freeze-frame vision" over and over to the droplets of a synth harp and sweeping, octave-bending pedals. "Hold Me Down" is a bastardized, distortion-dressed successor to Christopher Cross's "Ride Like the Wind," with the same rolling percussion line, airy riffs, and the keynote tagline "I'm in the wind." (All that's missing is Michael McDonald on backing vox.) Likewise, "My Time" and "Into the Mirror" could have been ripped straight from Hall & Oates's H2O, with the latter track especially reminiscent of the duo's thematic, heavy-handed cover of Mike Oldfield's "Family Man." It's syrupy, heart-on-the-sleeve stuff, so slickly produced and acutely cornball that it has no logical place on the record of any semi-obscure, self-respecting indie rock band. And yet Omni remains intriguingly smooth and flip: Cool by way of its out-of-touch bravado, and, in too-brief moments, graced by a tongue-in-cheek bittersweetness....full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| Omni is the album every Minus the Bear fan should love. It takes all the best elements from each of their earlier albums and mixes them into one rather nice sounding new one. Want that effortlessly cool, screwed-that-model-in-the-bathroom-backstage-no-biggie vibe you fell in love with from Highly Refined Pirates? It's here. Miss that more focused, more driven indie sound that Menos El Oso provided, with its poppier hooks and cleaner production? Got that too. Or maybe you're more of a fan of the forward-thinking prog rock of Planet of Ice, where silly song titles were replaced with intelligent songwriting and the band really began to show what they were capable of? Look no further, Omni's got it. And yet it also sounds different, fresh; inviting and accessible for newcomers to the band. Perfect, no? Not quite. Though it is fair to say the band have collected the best bits from their discography and given them a new home in Omni, each of those elements seem half-baked here; suffocated and with a frustrating lack of bite. Lyrically, the Highly Refined Pirates vibe of the record seems like a strained attempt to dig up their roots and appear cool and sexually superior (to you) again, and the exciting progressive indie from Planet of Ice is few and far between, rarely given the room to flourish when it does appear. The guitars of Knudson and co. take a back seat to the synth in many of the tracks here, creating a sound that's perfect for the summer ahead, but whether they'll last much longer is hard to say. One of the major criticisms I hear when introducing people to the band is "all the songs sound the same", and, while the ten tracks here can switch from sexy to mature, dark to funky, and the differences make themselves further known with extended listening, the heavy reliance on the synth does, unfortunately, keep that complaint intact....full text |
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