Bad Mothers Union Drop A Sonically Massive and Experimental Record
The new album release from Bad Mothers Union is finally here, and this thing certainly doesn't hold back in the way of unleashing massive sonic relevance, drive, and presence. With its first track being over 20 minutes in length, they really let you in for quite a musical Journey.
Let's start with that first track, shall we?
"Jerusalem Jones" starts a little bit softer than it ends. You have some great sort of 90s style jams going on, layered guitars, percussion that just gets deep into the groove and gives the song an amazing pocket to roll with, as guitars do some very lively riffs, bends come, and progressions, and the bass guitar has an amazing way of keeping everything together.
By the time you get a few minutes into the song, you can really hear how that bass guitar is the glue, while it allows the guitars to do floating, drifting notes over it, and how the drums are the aspect that helps give it the drive and puts you in the moment.
There are all kinds of softer notes floating around, and just as you fall into that, about 5 minutes in, it explodes into a massive garage and alternative rock powerhouse with electric energy and blistering tones, as the guitars become distorted and the whole track starts gaining a different kind of momentum from where it started.
I absolutely love how everything is so insanely melodic but also so edgy and erratic at the same time. It feels good to listen to this track because it's got this infectious kind of energy about it, and it still has this subtlety in its underbelly somehow. It doesn't pick up and get fast. It stays the same pace, has the same deep groove pockets, and keeps to the flow that it started with.
Everything just gets more explosive now.
Guitars end up doing these almost surfy bends that feel like they're done on a whammy bar, and sort of picking at the little strings between the headstock and the neck so that you get those tinny, almost bell-like notes coming through.
It is all meant to add atmosphere, which it absolutely does.
This band is all about creating atmosphere, and the first song is one of the biggest on the record.
This leads us right into the self-titled track, Bad Mothers Union, which is a short but sweet sort of garage-punk interlude, which leads right into one of my favorites, "God's Intercom".
Now, we've reviewed this track in particular previously, but I am going to dip into it because it's amazing. This is a song that embodies some of what this band is all about.
It's cinematic, spacious, robust, melodic but again, still edgy and slightly frantic.
Once more, it's the energy and how they perform on the record that really wrap you up. That's what gives songs the intensity that they have.
It's also all about how they plan the songs out so that they do actually explode at certain moments, but beforehand they build up that momentum so that when the big parts hit, they hit hard.
"Cut In Half" is a kind of haunting style track. It's got a cool time signature when it comes to the drums, and the kick drum sound itself cuts through everything amazingly.
This song is a little eerie, but in a cool way. There's a lot of experimental tones happening, and it showcases some of the band's outside-the-box approach to sculpting sound, which is really what they're about as well.
These guys don't just write songs; they take their instruments and they build different sounds that are unexpected with them.
Also giving off a bit of a cinematic backbone, this track really sort of swallows you up in a way.
There's no explosion. This one keeps to its core and gives you this vibe the whole time.
This leads us into its closing track, "Golden O", which is composed of all of these staples and elements the record boasts, in one track.
It's incredibly vast, really widespread feeling, distant, the drums are slamming, the energy is alive and breathing, the guitars are spacious and can be feral, and intense.
This song has a lot of overdrive, distortion, and sonic overload. I really enjoyed that because a lot is happening at once, and it can be slightly overwhelming, but that gives me a good feeling.
I like feeling overwhelmed by a piece of music. It's the same thing that I would feel listening to classical music.
This record was definitely progressive and experimental, but again, very sound sculpting, ever-changing, and alive and breathing. There's no better way to put it.
This record is alive.
Now, this is a big one, because the opening and closing tracks are pretty lengthy. As I mentioned earlier, the amazing first track is over 20 minutes, the closing track is over 17 minutes, and the track right in the center, "God's Intercom", is over 13 minutes long.
So you have five pieces of music here, some are just over 1 minute and somewhere over 20, but either way the whole record is 1 hour.
Definitely don't miss this.
If you love experimental, progressive, outside-the-box, avant-garde, and sonically impressive music, then you don't want to skip this one.
Bad Mothers Union - Sore Losers (Spotify Link)
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