The Bear

iTunes Review

There are lots of earnest life lessons to be found on Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers’ 2009 album The Bear. This Massachusetts-based trio projects a scrappy working-class charm, leavened with crisp acoustic guitars and sparse, evocative piano. Kellogg has a lot to say about family dysfunction here — “A (With Love),” “Dying Wish of a Teenager,” and “My Old Man” dissect inter-generational angst with empathy and insight. At times, the album invokes the word-drunk glories of early Springsteen, especially on the rollicking “Do” and the buoyant “Shady Esperanto and the Young at Heart.” On “Oh Adeline” and “Lonely In Columbus,” Kellogg manages the difficult feat of sounding utterly lovestruck without appearing wimpy. The quietly intense “Satisfied Man” is an affecting personal anthem. True, the song forms and arrangement ideas heard on The Bear have been a staple of roots-rock for several decades. To their credit, Kellogg and the Sixers infuse these familiar musical modes with new vigor and palpable integrity.