For their fourth album, "Bear In Town", indie avant-pop supergroup Spirit Fest made a virtue of distance, with group members split across Europe, and recording sessions taking place after a brief 2021 tour of Europe. It"s an object lesson in perseverance and commitment, as the music here is some of Spirit Fest"s most moving yet. The six songs on this album illuminate different aspects of the transnational quintet"s character - lovely, heart-rending pop songs; melancholy chants; the joys of simple repetition - with the group"s guitar pop tended by gentle flourishes of piano and electronics. Some of those flourishes were spirited onto "Bear In Town" across the waves, with Mat Fowler (Bons, Jam Money) contributing from Britain, while the body of the music was recorded in a small apartment studio in Munich by the other members of Spirit Fest: Saya and Ueno (Tenniscoats), Markus Acher (The Notwist) and Cico Beck (Joasinho, Aloa Input). "Bear In Town" is concise and powerful, the infectious joy of the spirit communicated, beautifully, by melodies that balance the heartfelt with the melancholy. Reflecting on those sessions, Acher says, "I think the album captures how well we played together at that time." It"s all the more impressive given this material was put down live in the studio, with a few vocal overdubs. The depth of feeling at the core of Spirit Fest"s music is evident from the opening notes of "Bear In Town".