Solar Bear - 'Captains of Industry'

On their new EP Captains of Industry, Colorado’s Solar Bear dishes out blistering post-hardcore jams a la Dillinger Escape Plan and Every Time I Die. Boasting six tracks in about 30 minutes (minus some dead air between the last song and the bonus track), Captains of Industry is technically solid.

“Logical Fallacy” opens the disc with a hazy instrumental intro, as if the song was being played through a fish tank. Things finally shift into turbo on track two, “The Endless Choir.” Screeching guitars and off-kilter drums plow through, frequently shifting tempo in a fury. At five-and-a-half minutes in length, “Logical Fallacy” is a little formless in places, as if the band wanted to show off every musical trick it knew. But you could just as easily argue that the track sets Solar Bear’s M.O. There are gang vox and rock outs and break downs and this, that, and the other thing.

Pretty much every track afterward follows that same intense playbook, although the hidden track reveals a knack for At the Drive-In-style hysterics and classic rock guitar jams. Whether or not the band can synthesize those leanings into a series of full-fledged songs remains to be seen, but Captains of Industry certainly feels promising all the same.