Thursday To-Do: Bear Colony
BEAR COLONY
9 p.m., Revolution. $6.
Rarely has bedroom pop been so expansive. Several years ago, during a prolonged health scare, Vince Griffin composed a wealth of new material from the confines of his bedroom. After he recovered, the Little Rock singer/songwriter took the project to 11 musician friends scattered in disparate spots across the globe. The members of Bear Colony (or Brothers + Sisters as they were first known) traded parts over the web, honed and passed them back again. Early this year, the Jackson, Miss., record label Esperanza Plantation released “We Came Here to Die.” As the title suggests, there's a fair amount of desolation in Bear Colony. Griffin's voice is naturally plaintive and songs like “Holidays/No Feelings” (“the city will swallow us all tonight”) and “Hospital Rooms Aren't for Lovers” don't exactly sun up the material. Still, even though the densely orchestrated music relies largely on electronic blips and bleeps, there's enough low-key warmth to it to leaven the woe. Against all geographic odds, Bear Colony has toured sporadically behind its release. Thursday's show kicks off a short tour that will take the band on through the East Coast and Midwest. The Barons, an angsty indie-rock outfit from Dallas, open the show.
