★★★★★
If MGMT hadn't got so trippy, if Vampire Weekend didn't know Soweto from Secaucus - they'd probably both still be better, or at least bigger, than Bear Hands. But the Brooklyn band's second LP (on the label that first signed MGMT) has its charms, mixing ringing guitars, kiting Eighties synths and nerdy swagger: "I say, 'Art!' You say, 'Class!'" Wesleyan grad Dylan Rau implores on the winning single "Giants...
- www.rollingstone.com
2014-02-22
★★★★★
Tweet Not on the Frontier Back at SXSW 2010 when Bear Hands was hot on the heels of Burning Bush Supper Club, drummer TJ Orscher said, "We fight like brothers and love like mothers. The rest is magic." That's to say, it didn't take long for Bear Hands to find their footing and dynamics. Once they were done promoting their debut, this Brooklyn treasure retreated back into their New York homes and slipped into Distraction. Literally...
- www.mxdwn.com
2014-02-20
★★★★★
This Brooklyn band's second album is a solid set of psych-tinged dance-rock containing elements of post-punk, electro-pop, prog-rock and more on hook-filled songs combining a densely produced sound with clever lyrics. 2/14/2014
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- kexp.org
2014-02-15
★★★★★
Seems like the two largest trends in alt-rock these days are guitar-based cleverness (cf. the Kenneth Cole penny-loafer pop of Vampire Weekend) and the nü-rave sincerity gushing from the psyche of synth-laden units (cf. Passion Pit, Foster The People). Fortunately, Distraction, the second album from Brooklyn, New York's Bear Hands is the perfect antidote for listeners weary of these kinds of outfits encroaching into the world daily...
- altpress.com
2014-02-13
★★★★★
Seems like the two largest trends in alt-rock these days are guitar-based cleverness (cf. the Kenneth Cole penny-loafer pop of Vampire Weekend) and the nü-rave sincerity gushing from the psyche of synth-laden units (cf. Passion Pit, Foster The People). Fortunately, Distraction, the second album from Brooklyn, New York's Bear Hands is the perfect antidote for listeners weary of these kinds of outfits encroaching into the world daily...
- www.altpress.com
2014-03-08
★★★★★
Summary: What does it take to create music that is truly fun? Apparently not that much... 2 of 2 thought this review was well written The concept of "emergence", most often found in such subjects as nature theory and philosophical dialogues, bases itself on a remarkably straightforward thesis: "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2011-10-31
★★★★★
Hailing from the same school of Brooklyn rock as MGMT, Bear Hands are yet another nasally-vocalled, guitar chugging, funk-infused, psychedelic rock outfit. While they're hardly trail-blazing, this four-piece show great promise with this fiery, if slightly inconsistent, debut album. Dylan Rau wrote around 70 songs when he instigated the band, but it has taken a while for the spoils to see the light of day...
- www.beat.com.au
2011-09-19
★★★★★
Bear Hands' Burning Bush Supper Club has been dubbed by a number of critics as 'the album Congratulations should have been'. Bear Hands are compared a lot to MGMT. It doesn't help that both bands have toured together in the past and were in the same year at Wesleyan, a liberal arts university in Connecticut...
- www.theaureview.com
2011-08-08
★★★★★
Brooklyn's Bear Hands come floating over the borough on dirty carpets of delayed guitars and scratchy vocals, bubbling bass and pounding drums. Bassist Val Loper and drummer TJ Orscher banged around their local punk and hardcore scenes for years before joining up with singer Dylan Rau and guitarist Ted Feldman. Loper and Orscher's stomp-and-bash rhythms ground the ethereal guitars and sparkling keys, stretching the fabric of astral pop until it drags through the primordial muck...
- www.filter-mag.com
2011-01-03
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