One of the most engaging tracks on Walter Martin's 2020 album The World at Night was "The Soldier." A tribute to his grandfather-in-law, it was a funny, affectionate, personal, and ambitious step forward for his songwriting that continues on The Bear. His most autobiographical work to date, Martin's eighth album is also the first he recorded after relocating to upstate New York. Moving is the perfect time to reflect on memories and change, both of which he explores on The Bear ever so softly. Compared to the theatrical touches on The World at Night, this album is gentle and understated; the brief instrumental "First Voices" is as warm as a hug between old friends. Despite an all-star group of supporting musicians that includes Minari composer/pianist Emile Mosseri, The Bear's focus is always on Martin's songwriting, which is at a peak. The connections he makes between remembrances of family and friends are driven by emotional logic; on "Baseball Diamonds," he zigzags charmingly between the game on TV to Christmas to branches of the family tree before becoming so lost in memories that he drifts off on Mosseri's flowing reverie. On songs like these, it feels like he's telling stories that have just popped into his mind, while the gently rollicking "Hiram Hollow" gives its musings on mortality a folky, fable-like luster. The marvelous and mundane have always coexisted in Martin's music, but on The Bear, he also balances personal bliss and awareness of the world at large. On the title track, he reflects on his present life and his time in the Walkmen with an acceptance that's never complacent: "I don't know where my memories should go/The good and the bad/I cherish them so." Likewise, no matter how heartwarming The Bear gets, it's never saccharine. Martin avoids tidy narratives in favor of the unexpected, as on the patient love song "The Crow Symbolizes Love" and "The Song Is Never Done," where he weaves together past and present with an optimism that's grounded by reality. Even more than on The World at Night, which also paid tribute to close friend and former Jonathan Fire*Eater bandmate Stewart Lupton, on The Bear Martin lets sorrow and uncertainty into his songs in remarkably personal ways. "Easter," one of the album's most restless songs, ponders the huge gulf between the person he is and the person he used to be over shivery pedal steel. "Not My Mother," a Leonard Cohen-esque tale of leaving behind a relationship that seemed empowering and ultimately became toxic, may be Martin's darkest song to date; "New Green," which sums up a lifetime's worth of regret in deceptively simple terms ("My heart is broken too/I just hide it in my shoe/A little better than you") may be his most revealing. Perhaps even more than his previous albums, The Bear feels like Martin made it for himself, but anyone who listens closely to it will be richly rewarded.
© Heather Phares /TiVo