Polar Bear Club – Clash Battle Guilt Pride

The stylistic washed out red, moss green, and sky-blue tones setting the mood of Polar Bear Club’s growing discography is quick approaching iconic status in the punk and hardcore community.  What started out as a band with critics making far too many references to Hot Water Music has since blossomed into notable landmark on today’s weathered punk-rock landscape.  Up and coming bands reference their grizzled bellows and rock hard chords without shame or hesitation.  Polar Bear Club has sat at the helm of hardcore since their head turning full-length Sometimes Things Just Disappear, which has since seen hardcore powerhouse Bridge Nine Records snap up the young band in anticipation of their future output.

But their journey has been far from perfect.  In fact, their most anticipated work for the label, Chasing Hamburg, was also met with mixed reviews, many pointing to a lack of substantial growth or impact despite continuing a formula that undeniably worked for the band.  This brings us to their current output and third full length, Clash, Battle, Guilt, Pride – which also doubles as a statement as to how bands can not only recover from the dreaded sophomore slump, but move on to create a genre hallmark.

Clash, Battle, Guilt, Pride finds Polar Bear Club finally coming of age and taking full advantage of their scars of experience.  The reflective slow-crawler “Pawner” builds from a standstill as vocalist Jimmy Stadt wears his heart on his sleeve.  The first minute rolls in at a near spoken-word pace, emphasized by flashes of brief but selective guitar.  Stadt continues a personal evolution, hinting at a sensitivity and range buried under all those coarse layers of gravel (as weathered and worldly as Leatherface but as direct as Rise Against).  The sense of buildup intensifies with the patient emergence of corresponding drumbeats panning into the fluttery tail end of their withering crescendos.  The entire first track serves as a primer for the big, “woah” enhanced, soul-grabbing payoff continued in the aptly named “Killing It,” which over it’s three minute run time easily eclipses anything from Chasing Hamburg.

Once introduction formalities play out, subsequent ambitions fall seamlessly into place – their maturity and healthy respect for post-hardcore bringing to mind the late career resurgence of Small Brown Bike.  “Screams In Caves” for instance shifts between a mixture of tempos that let lead guitarist Chris Browne find a home for his talent in a barrage of subtle guitar cues wrapped warmly in a melodic message of friendship culminating in the imagery intense passage “Don’t you feel the pull? It’s tougher now than ever/It left like melting snow/and came back tough as leather.”  Polar Bear Club never hesitates to take a step back, gather their bearings, and launch into full arrays of gang-led anthemic brilliance.

That being said, “Post-anthemic” might better communicate the intricate underlay wrapping itself around these punchy rhythms – particularly throughout the bridge-laced “Bottled Wind.”  Even the solos on songs like “Kneel On Nails” or “Between The Lines” feel more like emotional statements than simple technical showpieces.  Even the closing track “3/4 Tango” concludes with what must be one their most magnetic song to date.  It’s the type of song that you just don’t want to end – a concept easily extended to the album as a whole.

I would say that Clash Battle Guilt Pride exceeds expectations – but I think fans and critics alike have been expecting Polar Bear Club’s ‘magnum opus’ for a while now.  It’s a case of better late than never that likely required the bumpy ride for fans to most fully appreciate the draw-dropping destination.  Without question one of the year’s most hard hitting and fully realized forays into post-hardcore that is sure to leave listeners both satisfied and begging for more.