Neil Spencer 

Polar Bear: Same As You review – a spacier, more minimalist sound

Seb Rochford and Polar Bear channel love and positivity in the Mojave desert to winning effect
  
  

polar bear same as you
Seb Rochford, centre, and Polar Bear. Photograph: RJ Fernandez Photograph: RJ Fernandez

Drummer-led bands can be a thumping bore, but not when Seb Rochford is the one behind the traps. He lends this seventh album from the London avant-jazzers an unerring but playful pulse of gentle polyrhythms alongside Tom Herbert’s taut, dub-like acoustic bass. The urban electronica of 2014’s In Each and Every One is sidelined for a spacier, more minimalist sound, no doubt influenced by the Mojave desert where Rochford mixed the record. The group’s twin saxes are sinuous but restrained, edgy but never ugly, and there’s a glorious singalong on Don’t Let the Feeling Go. “Love and positivity” are Rochford’s intent, and it shows.

 

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