Review Summary: Originality is here, yet it feels so drowned in all the other attempts at this and that the other band make.
Ah, Victory Records. Once a confident label for groups, has now surely pushed themselves into a position where all acceptability has flown out the window. Whether it’d be the confusing and laughable signing of embarrassment Design the Skyline or another quite strange little revealing, The Bunny The Bear. Judging this group right off the bat wasn’t hard to do in the slightest bit, the strangely humorous album cover doesn’t do any justice in encouraging people to listen to this album and the groups strange experimental sound is one that can quickly turn heads away from what this group is trying to do. The “theatrical” mentioning that is brought forward in the bands description couldn’t be anymore incorrect, but managing to separate themselves in the slightest bit is something worth giving a tad bit of credit out for.
The Bunny The Bear lives up to it’s name with their image, as the two main vocalists hide their face behind masks of, you guessed it, a bunny and a bear. Switching around things just a little bit, the innocent yet creepy bunny brings forth the delivery of some pretty damaging screams. He has his highs and he has his lows, but with the mid range being completely non existent, his delivery becomes overheard once you hit the mid point in the album. The bear on the other hand, showcasing brutality and pure savageness, puts on a nothing less than killer singing performance. The bear has an undeniably great range and while most are bound to turn away at the sky high pitch of his singing, his balance in sound and pitch keeps things varied throughout.
Basing themselves off of this grand style of sound they bring forth, one of the bands biggest and most important aspect lays in the hands of their keyboardist. Shining in each and every single track, he marks his place in the group with his ability to enhance the overall sound of the song. The problem is there is no variety, between the piano and run of the mill average synth sound, nothing else is brought forth. No experimentation with different sounds are used keeping things at a minimal simplicity. It’s his cooperation with the rest of the instruments that come together for some pretty cool little moments, such as the intro of ‘Lust Touch Seed’, where the synth and drums go hand in hand for a pretty appealing little instrumental moment.
Besides the ambience, instrumentals here are bare dry. Not once does any other instrument get the ability to shine, it all drowns behind the overloud vocals and synth delivery. Losing the instrumentals behind everything else is in no way a good thing, but for the second half of the album the vocalists and keyboardists seems to just leave everyone behind. While the first few songs are the best, the rest of the album seems to hit a sudden change in pace and rely on piano based ballad style tracks. ‘396.17’ and ‘Rough Eyes’ are the perfect example of this, two slowed down tracks that do a fantastic job showcasing the singing ability of the bear, but completely dumb down any pacing the album had brought forth in the first half.
I can’t ignore experimentation, if a band is going to go and try something new and fail, I still give the slightest bit of credit for just trying. The thing is, now the band has the ability to see what they did wrong and with whatever lies in the future for them, take what made the experimentation fail and make it work. Originality is here, and it’s showcased by the little things The Bunny The Bear bring forth, but with an odd change in sound half way through the album and a sense of confusion for what the band is trying to do, nothing comes out as planned and remains pretty dull.
