On Means to Me, Long Beard Sounds Newly Pristine
But the unexpected shine doesn’t let the mystery be

Long before Leslie Bear was of national interest, she was a staple of the New Brunswick, N.J. music scene. During the early part of the decade in some of the same basements where punk bands such as Screaming Females first began turning heads, Bear, who goes by the moniker Long Beard, played her drumless, homespun confections of shimmering guitars and ambiguous near-whispers to college students who almost universally loved her music. Her debut EP, 2014’s Holy Crow, became a staple of the area’s college radio station.
Holy Crow’s best song, the devastating voice-and-guitar-only reverie, “Hates the Party,” appeared in a sweeping full-band rendition on Long Beard’s proper debut album, 2015’s Sleepwalker. The re-recorded song suggested that Bear can tap into new dimensions of her music with a full band in tow, while other Sleepwalker tracks like “Someplace” and “Moths” testified to the power she can pull from the dawn-like, percussion-free blur of her earliest songs.
Means to Me, Bear’s second album, operates entirely in the pristinely produced vein of the rerecorded “Hates the Party.” Every song features live drums, astoundingly bright and audible guitars, and vocals that prevent listeners from playing any guessing games about Bear’s lyrics. Often, this unexpectedly lucid approach shines a potent light on the song parts that might otherwise remain dark, and occasionally, it results in her best music to date. At other times, though, the clarity doesn’t let the mystery be, rendering the songs completely flat.