The folk-pop of Bear’s Den’s 2014 debut Islands drew inevitable comparisons with Mumford & Sons, their friends and occasional tourmates. The comparison still stands on their second album, which trades in the same widescreen rock music as the Mumfords’ last album, itself influenced by the air-punching Americana of the War on Drugs. There’s no faulting the conviction with which Bear’s Den set about the tropes of epic American road music: singer Andrew Davie goes big on themes of love and anguish, songs such as Roses on a Breeze move smoothly through the gears towards windswept climaxes. But there’s nothing that really connects here; no flash of originality to distinguish them from any number of stadium emoters riffing on fantasies of the open road.
