Artists We Love: 14 Iced Bears

Coming out of Brighton, England, 14 Iced Bears are driven mainly by singer Rob Sekula, guitarist Kevin Canham, and bassist Will Taylor. They were a main cog of C86 music, which for those who don’t know, was a cassette club run by the infamous, but influential NME.

The largely unknown 14 Iced Bears are an interesting blend of 80’s, 90’s, with mostly positive vibes. Despite the weird band name, they are a very artsy, and polished group. They play a blend of mostly creative pop with rock style drums, guitar, and a pervasive synth sound which creates, as all great pop bands do, a sunshine feel good vibe over the songs. Even when the lyrics, or the music itself is dark. Which brings us to the lyrics. While many of the songs are clever and thoughtful. Many are also dark, and sad, such as ‘Cut,’ ‘Dust Remains,’ and ‘Mother Sleep.’ In ‘Dust Remains,’ he sings broodingly about the end of a relationship, and in cut, rejection, “don’t ever call me again.” They deal with social phenomena, and progress through the albums, to points of positive emotion, such as in surfacer, he is “hoping to find a way” in the last song on their self titled first studio album.

They only released two studio albums, 14 Iced Bears(1989), and Wonder(1991), though both have some gems. ‘Rare(Like you are),’ and ‘Love on Sugar Mountain’ both have a driving rock catch to them. The lead song off of Wonder, ‘Hold On’ is in my opinion by far their best song, and could easily appeal to a mass pop audience. ‘Surfacer,’ ‘Cut,’ ‘Dust Remains,’ and ‘Spangle’ are my favorites on 14 Iced Bears. They also released a variety of B-Sides on the compilation Hold On Inside(2013) including another great track, ‘Balloon Song,’ whose jangle rhythms match any out there. his compilation was on one of my favorite labels, the brilliant Cherry Red Records. They toured briefly in 2010, but haven’t given any indication of more albums to come.

Follow them on Facebook and Twitter

Buy their music from Cherry Red Records or Bandcamp