Album Review: Boy & Bear – Tripping Over Time
2 min read
Boy & Bear sound, to me, like a band more interested in the long road than as quick win. Since emerging from Sydney in early 2010s, they’ve built a loyal fan base from their harmony-rich song writing and sun-faded melodies. In self-released Tripping Over Time, the band looks to lean into moving forward with an eye on the past —shaped from touring, time apart, and growing older without slowing down – Boy & Bear are hoping for more of a recalibration than reinvention: familiar elements rearranged and new perspectives on old matters. Let’s find out if the trip ends in a comical heap or an elegant forward motion!
Starting with their title track, Tripping Over Time, feels somewhat reflective lyrically, with some nice laid back instrumentation – it’s a very easy track to listen to, but without anything that particularly hits you in the face… which I think was somewhat the intention – good track. Where Does Life Begin next, which begins slowly with piano, but builds into a muted crescendo at the chorus. Vertigo is the first of a few tracks where I instantly thought “David Gray” – not sure if that’s a positive or not… guess it depends on whether that’s what the band were going for – and this is true for the acoustic Ancestors, though Thunder had a more laid back 70’s feel to it (I think it was the harmonies & chords at the chorus).
Lost Control kicks off the second half of the album in an upbeat yet melancholy feel, giving me early noughties indie rock vibes – it’s probably my favourite track on the album. next up, Love Has Been Too Good to Me starts with what sounds like a Casio keyboard pre-set beat, and I’m not against it tbh, in what is for me the most David Gray-esque slow track. Roses is a nice, short, analogue indie/rock track, whilst Sleep Talking is a melancholy slow mover (and probably in my running for best track on the album), and penultimate track All These Years is an inoffensive standard mid-tempo rock n roll track. We round off proceedings with Movie – which in the main is a good track, though it does feel like about halfway through David Hosking uses the track to have a bit of a whinge!
Tripping Over Time is a solid album and, honestly, will please the current fan base… and maybe bring some newcomers on board. It’s not necessarily for me at this time – there’s nothing new on there for me, and it doesn’t give me what I’m looking for in an indie/rock album… there’s nothing that stands out enough for me to add a track to my favourites… but if it was on in the background of a coffee shop, I wouldn’t complain.
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