''Beekeeping'' is a 2008 album by

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

alternative rock band Polara, their fifth and final full-length release. It was released on bandleader

Ed Ackerson Edwin C. Ackerson (July 18, 1965 – October 4, 2019) was an American musician and producer from Minneapolis. He produced or engineered dozens of records including works by prominent artists such as The Jayhawks, The Replacements (band), The Repl ...

's Susstones Records label and produced by Ackerson at his recording studio,

Flowers Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

. Released six years after the band's previous album ''Jetpack Blues'' and a few months after the more introspective solo album ''Ed Ackerson'', the lineup on ''Beekeeping'' included founding members Ackerson and guitarist Jennifer Jurgens, as well as drummer Peter Anderson. During this period, the band's live group included Jayhawks guitarist Marc Perlman, Tim Oesau, and Ackerson's wife Ashley Ackerson, who also led the group The Mood Swings.

Reception

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who, Dave Schulps, and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

'' writer Ira Robbins praised the album as "a straightforward guitar pop album with few digressions that drops Polara right back in action with all of its strengths not only intact but more smoothly integrated than ever." Chris Riemenschneider of the Minneapolis-St. Paul

Star Tribune ''The Minnesota Star Tribune'', formerly the ''Minneapolis Star Tribune'', is an American daily newspaper based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of 2023, it is Minnesota's largest newspaper and the List of newspapers in the United States, seventh- ...

said that after the mellower ''Ed Ackerson'' album, ''Beekeeping'' had brought Ackerson back "to the feistier, fuzzier sound of his old band", comparing the sound to a more "psychedelic"

Stone Roses The Stone Roses were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. They were one of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The band's classic and most prominent lineup consisted of vocalist Ian ...

. A reviewer for the music blog WeHeartMusic said that "Polara possesses what I consider the classic Twin Cities rock sound" and that ''Beekeeping'' "filled me with a sort of heady euphoria that will have me buzzing around the neighborhood for hours." Andrea Myers of ''

City Pages ''City Pages'' was an alternative newspaper serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. It featured news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews and music criticism, available free every Wednesday. It ceased publication in 2020 due to a ...

'' said that Polara "masterfully balance the accessibility of hooky Britpop with the oddity of adding layers of fuzz and feedback to an otherwise clean sound."

Track listing

References

{{Authority control 2008 albums Polara (band) albums