Pitchfork

Minus the Bear is something of an anomaly in indie rock. The Seattle-based hybrid group, known for absurd song and album titles that suggest a playful imagination rarely evidenced in their music, have maintained indie rock prominence for a little over three years, with only one proper album (2002's Highly Refined Pirates) and two previous EPs to justify their existence. Their musical development is practically nonexistent-- the group's spacey, synth-spiked brand of hypercharged guitar rock has remained basically unchanged for years. With no more material than Sufjan Stevens could muster in a week, or Robert Pollard in 12 minutes, the band has still built a substantial following.

On They Make Beer Commercials Like This, Minus the Bear expands its sound somewhat from its characteristic quasi-prog guitar noodling, embracing a more diverse sonic palette, from the punchy electrobeat post-punk of "Fine and 2 Pts." to the Change-era D-Plan emulation of "Let's Play Clowns". But Jake Snider, singing in his typical low-key deadpan, pretty much sums things up on the disc's opening track: "Our basic program is the same." The band's precise dual guitar work and complex but unobtrusive choruses are strikingly similar to the music on the band's other releases.

The EP's best tracks avoid easy pigeonholing. "Dog Park" establishes a distinctive verse consisting of airy synths and a meticulous repeating guitar pattern before dissolving into a reverb-drenched keyboard interlude, then doubling back into an animated chorus. "Pony Up" overcomes its ponderous lyrics ("how can we claim that we know ourselves") with some of the record's most compelling musical arrangements. A few simple mixing tricks, like acoustic and electric guitar patterns pushed to opposite stereo channels, or the following channel-to-channel crash-pan of a rapid-fire guitar riff, are fairly obvious but nonetheless effectively dizzying sonic gimmicks.

The most ludicrously titled tracks are, perhaps counter-intuitively, also the least memorable. "I'm Totally Not Down with Rob's Alien" immediately meanders with a pair of go-nowhere guitar figures that resemble Incubus' sludgy, shapeless alt-rock, while "Hey! Is That a Ninja Up There?" seems to have expended all its cleverness on its title. The track is an indistinct muddle of weak guitar hooks, irritating sweeping synth tones, and tedious vocal melodies. The shifting time signature initially distinguishes the track, but the song goes in too many directions and eventually splinters.

The prevalence of so much filler on a six-song EP is discouraging, and marks this EP as just another placeholder in a career long sustained primarily by placeholder EPs. The disc effortlessly slips into Minus the Bear's modest discography, but shows about as much progression in the band's career as beer commercials have shown in the proliferation of women's rights.