Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This is Party Music!!! (4.5 Stars), March 16, 2006
MINUS THE BEAR - Highly Refined Pirates
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Like many, my introduction to this band was because I heard this guitarist Dave Knudson's new band. (Dave was formerly in a little ol' hardcore band called: Botch)
My initial reaction was shock... Wait! Stop the Presses! This isn't Heavy!
Then I got a grip on myself and actually listened to the CD.... AMAZING!!!
-Honestly if radio stations played music like this I would actually appreciate Pop-Music.
Minus the Bear is filled with amazingly catchy, and skillful, guitar riffs, funktastic bass lines, complex drumming, nice elemental prog-inspired keyboards and a great singer who is also is an amazing lyricist. (See, Get Me Naked: Part II)
They have oodles of talent and are beyond catchy... I ponder my brain everyday wondering why bands like this and Porcupine Tree aren't at the forefront of Mainstream music... and then I remember... Sometimes it is better we keep these gems to real music fans and not companies that will just exploit and ruin them.
Favorite Songs: Get Me Naked 2: Electric Boogaloo, Thanks For The Killer Game Of Crisco Twister, and Women We Haven't Met Yet
-4.5 Stars
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Refined Pirates good cd, May 18, 2005
They may call this math rock but - contrary to the attempt at pigeonholing - it rarely gets boring. Which is usually a good sign that the usual musical designations don't really apply to Minus the Bear. The only question that comes up during a casual or earnest listen to their latest release, Highly Refined Pirates, is this: where would you place these guys if you had to? Then comes the rejoinder: who cares? Filled with complex guitar fingerwork, aural synth embellishment, and spiraling arrangements that recall everything from King Crimson to More Songs About Building and Food-era Talking Heads to later work from bands like Fugazi (especially The Argument) and Juno, Highly Refined Pirates is a trip through what's great about newer indie rock that doesn't sound like it's trying to be punk without the danger. Many songs on Highly Refined Pirates float ethereally above their conventionally driving drum and guitar lines, and pack a serious lyrical punch to boot. Such as "Get Me Naked 2: Electric Boogaloo" - comedy! - which boasts one of the coolest choruses ever committed to memory ("You said, 'My life's like a bad movie'/I said, 'That's true of all of us'/You said 'I've got to wake up so f**king early'/I said 'Maybe the director's turned on us'). Or "Let's Play Guitar in a Five-Guitar Band," a dense collection of echo-heavy vocals, light arpeggiation, distant distortion, and enough hammer-ons to make Eddie Van Halen proud. But the greatest thing about this Minus the Bear album is that it doesn't let its sonic complexity go to its head. Each of Highly Refined Pirates' songs is filled with tongue-in-cheek lyrical wordplay (like that cited above) or entitled with toss-off lines from Paul Verhoeven's outer space soap opera, Starship Troopers (samples: "You Kill Bugs Good, Man" or "Damn Bugs Whacked Him, Johnny"). Al in all, Highly Refined Pirates will probably satisfy the music notation nerds, the indie cynics, and the random listener searching for something indefinite in a saturated pop landscape looking to hawk the usual boring band du jour.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
yikes! stripes! fruit stripes gum!, April 15, 2003
Yowza this band is good...I saw them with Cursive and they managed to steal the show...no small feat. So anyways...onto the CD. Supercool angular, two hand tapped (but not in metalcore gross style), clean melodic riffing complemented by incredible incredible drum and bass work (sounds heavily influenced by electronica music of all things) with cool lyrics sung by a cooler voice. And a guy that makes ambient noise effects/produces the records. There is no weak point to this band that i can think of. Recommended to fans of indie, pop, hardcore...anything really. Listen to this CD in your car with the windows down!
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by Minus the Bear 
