Following on from the huge support for their previously unveiled singles ‘All That You Are’, ‘Spiders’, ‘Shadows’, ‘Blue Hours’ and most recently ‘Frightened Whispers’, folk-rock duo Bear’s Den – made up of Andrew Davie and Kevin Jones – have now released their highly-anticipated, fourth studio album ‘Blue Hours’ through Communion Records, which also comes accompanied by the focus track ‘New Ways’. The album release is supported by an extensive UK, Europe and North America tour which is already underway in Europe and includes a night at London’s Eventim Apollo on May 18th.
Produced by regular collaborator Ian Grimble, themes on this new album include both self-reflection and mental health after both struggled with the latter in recent years. “It’s the main overarching theme with this record,” Davie explains. The group, who has worked with mental health charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) previously added: “It probably speaks to our struggles and hopefully many other people’s too. Men are not very good at talking. We’re not really taught how to – men have no idea how to talk about this stuff, certainly to each other.”
Adding about the new album, Davie says: “Blue Hours is a kind of imaginary space you get into at night, a place where you process difficult things or where you try to figure everything out.”
To tie in with the band’s UK tour dates Bear’s Den have teamed up once again with UK suicide-prevention charity Campaign Against Living miserably (CALM) to take part in their ‘Secret Encore’ initiative. Much like Sam Fender and Supergrass who’ve recently joined forces with CALM on tour, the campaign will give fans attending the live shows the opportunity to donate and raise funds for CALM’s lifesaving work, and in return receive a specially recorded ‘Bear’s Den’ live video of a track, delivered an hour after the show.
The record’s final cut ‘New Ways’ looks to show the timely nature of this new release. Written at the beginning of the pandemic, the pair were in search of a guiding light to find their way through the deepening anxiety and stress of that time, making this new single the perfect opening to their latest full-length.
Speaking about ‘New Ways’, they said, “We’re so happy to be releasing ‘New Ways’ and our brand new album today!! I started writing ‘New Ways’ at the beginning of the pandemic as a way of dealing with a bunch of my fears and anxieties about the future whilst also trying to find some sort of hope in a difficult situation. The hope of finding ‘New Ways’ to be ok or make it through what at the time was so unprecedented and scary. It also became a mission statement for us both creatively for the album and we immediately felt it should be the first track. We’re so excited for you to finally hear it.”
The pair describe the conceptual blue hours headspace that gives the new album its title as being “somewhere between a hotel, a mental health hospital, a bar that stays open later than anywhere else, a paradise, a dream, a nightmare and an endless sea of corridors and staircases leading you to rooms that represent memories – good, bad, happy or difficult.”
Despite the album’s challenging themes, it’s an album drenched in hope too. “We wanted this to be a celebration of music,” Jones continues. “I think that informed some of the bolder decision making on this record. At a time when music was so distant, it felt important to make an album that sounded hopeful, celebratory, ambitious and beautiful in spite of the heavy subject matter in some of the songs.” Jones adds: “It was almost like we needed to shout louder than before because we felt that there were more barriers between the audience and us. We needed something to transcend that.”
The album is available in a multitude of formats including; a ‘Blue Hours cassette’ (which has been created using stills from the Blue Hours video), the ‘blueprint edition’ on vinyl and cassette (comprised of a baby blue vinyl in transparent packaging and a cassette with alternative packaging), which are available from the group’s website, alongside a D2C special format personalised vinyl – a strictly limited 500 pressings of a handmade and numbered white label pressings. In addition, there is an exclusive Dinked Edition vinyl – a numbered exclusive format on crystal clear vinyl with an art print which is available to order from the Dinked coalition of indie stores here. The album is also be available as standard vinyl, CD and cassette.
Having just completed the European leg of their extensive touring schedule, Bear’s Den will next visit the UK & Ireland before heading to North America in the Autum. Tickets on sale NOW!