Beat of the Bay

“Don’t you want me, baby? Don’t you want me, ohh!” It’s a sunny Boston afternoon, and a crowd has gathered around a stage near Downtown Crossing in Boston, dancing and singing along to a famous ’80s synthpop hit. However, the men on stage with instruments in hand are less enthused than their audience. “We’re not that into doing covers,” confesses David Martineau, lead singer of Bearstronaut, after the show. “We’d rather work on our own songs and write new stuff.”

For the Boston-based Bearstronaut, there’s a constant tension between trying to push boundaries and please audiences at the same time. They are heavily rooted in an ’80s synth-based style of huge choruses and jittery keyboard licks, yet try to work around the fringes of the constricting genre. Recently, the tightrope walk has worked out: they played in front of energetic audiences all across the country this year on a tour that culminated with their homecoming dance at the Boston Calling music festival.

Bearstronaut’s roots are firmly set in New England. Many of the members attended high school together in Watertown, CT before convening for college at UMass Lowell in 2007. An early iteration of the band featured, as Mardsen described it,  “The Rapture-esque dance punk,” but the band’s sound shifted around when bassist Nate Mardsen joined the band—Martineau and Mardsen formed a bond, and probably not just due to the well-groomed mustaches they both currently sport. The result was an emphasis in keyboard-focused synth-pop that translated devastatingly well with local live audiences.

The band’s most recent EP, 2012’s “Paradice,” shows the band’s evolution and maturation. It’s a catchy five-song project with reverberating synth hooks galore; “Passenger Side” sounds like it belongs on a Toto album, as Mardsen’s springy bass balances out Martineau’s more relaxed vocals. And while Bearstronaut are known for their impressive live showmanship, this EP sounds distinctly like a studio-made project—although technically, it was made in the band’s Tufts-area apartment—with its careful contruction and editing.

“We completely changed the way we write songs,” Mardsen says. “We used to all write together in a rehearsal space, and but songs sounded a little too rock ‘n’ roll. So we started shaping songs for how we want them to be on the record, and then figuring out what to do with them live.”

The shift seems to pay off at the Sept. 5 Downtown Crossing Block Party, where the band play a set to kick off the festival weekend. The songs do not sound as full as they do on the record, but the band makes up for it with increased fervor. Mardsen leads the way—with his bass turned all the way up, he sets the tone for the band’s propulsive energy. They deftly flip between new songs and classic covers with ease: a “Paradice” cut turns into Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and then back again, with the whole section driven by drummer Phil Boisvert’s furious hi-hat attack. On “Birds of Prey,” all four members grab a drum and pound away at polyrhythms.

Still, it wan’t hard to tell that the band’s thoughts lay in their mammoth upcoming performance at Boston Calling. “I have no idea what to expect. I really want to meet Kendrick [Lamar]! I need to hang out with him!” Mardsen laughingly says. Martineau is a little more sincere, acknowledging the size of the moment. “This is a big milestone for us,” he says. “To be able to show our friends and family that we’ve been working this hard for this long, it’s the fruits of our labor coming true.”

Sunday afternoon is a perfectly sunny day in Boston, and Bearstronaut take the stage in front of an impressively large crowd of early birds; it’s pretty clearly a local crowd. The band doesn’t disappoint, ripping through its set with aplomb. For the new single “Where I’ll Die,” Martineau hops around the stage and claps his hands emphatically. Mardsen can’t contain the huge grin on his face as he stomps his feet. The crowd claps along, throws up their hands, and roars in approval.

For larger acts like Lamar or Solange, Boston Calling was another pit stop. For Bearstronaut, the festival was a triumphant return home. “We’re taking a break after this,” Martineau says. “We’re going underground, and then we’re recording full-length album. We’re really excited to start from scratch.” Their Boston Calling performance was surely an apex for the group, but with any luck, Bearstronaut will continue to reach higher.

—Staff writer Andrew R. Chow can be reached at Andrew.chow@thecrimson.com