Album Review: Mother Mother Make You Want “No Culture”
On February 10, Mother Mother releases No Culture, which is a fitting title for a record that will be described as electro-pop but certainly counters the culture of this genre. If anything, I would describe Mother Mother as “horror pop” because their instrumentals/lyrics aim more for the subtle spookiness of love and life rather than the sweetness. No Culture is a phenomenal album because its brings out one’s inner edge without it, necessarily, being darkness.
Instrumentally, No Culture is addictive. Each song’s rhythms appear like a scavenger hunt is being held in your mind, with Mother Mother leading the brigade to search your thoughts through harmonies. Ryan and Molly Guldemond know how to blend their voices until they become a solid, unified stream into your conscience. They both assure that their vocals are “in your face” but not through aggression or loudness. Instead, they delicately play with their range to always maintain a softness and simplicity that comes off more “in your face” like, in “Baby Boy“. Sometime, in a horror film, you find yourself jumping more because you hear the door creak rather than see the monster. This reference comes into plays both, lyrically and rhythmically, for the band. As they use each track like, “Family”, “Mouth Of The Devil”, and “Love Stuck” to observe how far they would push themselves as persons for the people and dreams they love.
//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.jsLove Stuck
We all have moments where we wonder the limits of our love. You may ask yourself if you would die or kill for your family or whether you have grown addicted to your relationship such as, in the song “The Drugs”. Mother Mother mixes in life’s harder and even darker questions amongst songs that use their synths and instrumentals to build the emotional edge of these challenges, but, lyrically, manage to balance their difficulty with a sugary finesse. It is in the catchiness of their words, along with their harmonies, that Mother Mother’s pop sensibilities definitely come out .They manage to swim in the issues of unclarity , “Everything Is Everything”, and displacement, “No Culture”, that love can spark, but never dive in fully, which makes sense. Pop music is meant to inspire visions of love within listeners, but not necessarily analyze said visions. It is as if pop begins the fire, but you, as the listener, have to maintain. That is exactly what Mother Mother does in No Culture. Their winding melodies makes you want to push and dance that fire known as life.
I highly enjoyed No Culture. It brings a light and slight rock n’ roll emotionality to pop that I would call “horror pop”. Although, nowadays, pop music is mashed with every other genre, back in the day, the sweetness of pop would not dare touch the darker, “dirtier” edges of say rock n’ roll or Hip Hop. Yet, Mother Mother show that being edgy does not come in the exchange of one’s purity. The questions we give ourselves in terms of how we handle life and love are meant to further our light: not destroy it. Thus, through their heavier basslines/ synths and, again, fantastic harmonies, No Culture will kind of make you not want to have one. For More Information On Mother Mother and To Buy No Culture on February 10 Click Here.
