#hello sir

Tiger Bear Wolf dates to the Bush II era, taking shape in 2002, as art rock glittered and post-punk slashed and noisy dance-punk experimenters held court in Brooklyn basements. Yet hard rock psychedelia has its advocates in every era, and Tiger Bear Wolf found an audience. The first album came out in 2003, a second in 2005. The band was writing this third album as it toured the second and recording it by 2009 but lost these demos in a hard drive apocalypse. It wasn’t until 2015 that the data was salvaged, and not until 11 years later that finished tracks were ready for release. 

This self-titled album, then, is as much a monument to persistence as it is a rock record. It tracks the passage of time by existing, more or less unchanged, against a shifting backdrop of musical taste and preference. It is beautifully out of step with the times, a wormhole that leads towards electrified blisses last experienced when Nixon reigned. “Silver Tongues” twitches and grooves in smoldering, light-bending heat, its relentless propulsion ornamented by serpentine guitars. It rages, but from a place of calm. “Wolf,” likewise chugs and boogies, drums and bass locked in syncopated propulsion, vocals half buried under the relentless rush. Band members howl and ululate as the momentum builds. Furious heat collides with otherworldly cool in these tracks, as meat-and-potatoes rock meets psychedelia. 

The question is, do you want this? It adheres very closely to a genre nobody seems to care about much any more. It’s a time capsule, not just from the aughts or teens when it was conceived, but from even earlier episodes of mind-bending heaviness. It rocks, for sure, and very well. But is that enough in 2026?