Antwerp, Belgium-based Progressive Hardcore band Bear have announced their new album, Vanta, out on September 23rd, 2023 from Pelagic Records. The album emerges from personal trials for the band, including “cancer, a global pandemic, broken relationships, and profound loss” and the album transmits “the pain, anguish, and fear that defines our human experience.”
The album name Vanta comes from the darkest known substance, and though the album plumbs darkness, the album also “uncovers the beauty nestled within suffering.”
Each track represents a journey and a chapter in the band’s personal saga. Tracks like “Cisplatin” and “Defeatist” manifest a battle with cancer, while “Earthgrinder” and “Cells” lay bare the “mental struggle brought on by isolation in the pandemic”.
One track that’s currently out, “Piece” captures the intensity of ’90s Hardcore. Like all the tracks on the album, it sets out to remind fans: “In the face of the bleakest darkness, there can still be light.”
