Polar Bear/ Peepers

Polar Bear
Peepers
(The Leaf Label)

Jazz. Like the impenetrable fortress of modern music, jazz seems to exist above the common man, despite a great many people taking interest in it. Professing an understanding of jazz is like claiming you could beat Amir Khan in a fight: there will likely be some debate, but no one can really prove themselves right either way.

Fortunately Polar Bear, the brainchild of one Sebastian Rochford, are one group giving the ‘accessible’ end of jazz a go. Particularly inspiring is ‘Happy For You’, which features the kind of rock rhythms that could’ve easily come from Two Gallants, while saxophones dual madly above. Similarly ‘Peepers’ plays with a Stones-y shuffle and obtuse guitar forged beneath a more straight-forward sax melody.
Less easy to digest is the droning and fluctuating of ‘A New Morning Will Come’, representing a moodier side to the collective. If you can deal with insane screaming and quick tempo tonguing, ‘Bump’ and ‘Scream’ give brief tasters of their freakout tendencies. There are also middle-eastern influences, particularly on ‘Finding Our Feet’ and the more industrial ‘Hope Every Day Is A Happy New Year’.
All in all this is potent stuff, not for the faint hearted but definitely for the jazz-curious.