Infinity Overhead

Personnel: Jake Snider (vocals, guitar); David Knudson (acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Alex Rose (saxophone, keyboards, programming, background vocals); Erin Tate (drums, percussion).
Audio Mixer: Matt Bayles.
Recording information: AVAST!; London Bridge Studios; Red Room Recording; The Piano Studio.
After the more laid-back, electronic-focused Omni, Minus the Bear return with a little more bite and purpose for their fifth album, Infinity Overhead. Where their last effort went for smoothness through layers of synthesizers, this album finds Minus the Bear falling back in love with their guitars, getting back to the intricate, mathy sound of their earlier work. "Toska" and "Cold Company" show off a return of the tapped-out guitar lines that helped to define their sound, with the latter featuring some truly dazzling flourishes. More impressive than the guitar work, however, is how casual the whole thing manages to sound. Whether they're firing off lightning-fast guitar licks or delivering something more languid and nuanced, like the plaintive and atmospheric "Heaven Is a Ghost Town," the effort level feels generally the same, with the band remaining in control. While this can sometimes cause the album's pace to feel a bit homogeneous, Minus the Bear's keen ear for layered melody provides a lot of depth for listeners to explore. Though Infinity Overhead isn't exactly a return to form for Minus the Bear, it does find them moving back toward what they do best, and is a step in a promising direction for fans hoping for the band to return to the more vigorous sound of Menos el Oso, and even though the album may lack a bit of fire, it feels like an olive branch to fans who may have been disappointed by Omni's more electronic sound. ~ Gregory Heaney