Album Review
Grief Chapter
by Mother Mother
Released 2/16/2024
By Joe Vickrey
Grief Chapter Album Art
It’s a rock album that only has moments of electric guitar. A synth album that features mandolin and banjo. A pop album that doesn’t have a single love song. Both musically and lyrically, each song feels impossibly unique.
Canadian Alt-Rock band Mother Mother formed in the mid-2000s, but only recently found success through TikTok with their 2007-2008 tracks “Hayloft” and “Verbatim.” For a band that has continued to evolve since their inception, following up on successes from nearly two decades prior could seem impossible to handle gracefully – but they’ve done just that. Proving they’re more than a one trick pony, Mother Mother shows that the best is yet to come with their latest release, Grief Chapter.
This time around, the band holds nothing back. Expanding on their already masterful use of fluid songwriting, each song builds and collapses on itself like the world’s greatest three-ring circus. Out of context, some of the singles made me question what this album would feel like as a whole, but the band have once again proved they can bottle lightning time and time again without ever repeating themselves.
Photo By Mackenzie Walker
These magicians continually pull rabbits of different sizes and shapes out of their timely and fashionable hats.
Beginning with “Nobody Escapes,” a song that can only be faulted for pronouncing nobody as “novody,” the song slips through multiple movements and ends as quickly as it began. The grief in Grief Chapter may be mourning the death of the traditional song as you know it. There isn’t a single example of a second verse in this album that reprises the same instrumentation as the first. Each song shifts shapes seamlessly. It’s a rock album that only has moments of electric guitar. A synth album that features mandolin and banjo. A pop album that doesn’t have a single love song.
Tracks like “To My Heart” and “Head Shrink” sound like tear-soaked journal entries from frontman Ryan Guldemond. The main theme of the album appears to be dealing with your own mortality, yet it lacks any of the clichés you may expect from the subject. Both musically and lyrically, each song feels impossibly unique. People have had massive choruses drop down to wobbly synthesizers before, but it feels like this and other tricks had the copyright filed by Mother Mother. We actually had to pay them royalty fees to mention that technique here.
Without a single dull moment on the record, Grief Chapter is the sound I wanted most 2010s indie rock outfits to evolve into: mixing synths, female and male lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars with lyrics so intimate they sting. Not to mention Mother Mother has the best rhythm section in the business. I’m a sucker for a good bass tone, and no one scratches that itch better than bassist Mike Young. Mike is a little less upfront in the mix on this release, but when the bass comes into focus it shines.
Photo By Mackenzie Walker
It wouldn’t be a Mother Mother record without the powerful and distinct vocals of Molly Guldemond and Jasmin Parkin.
Either one of them could easily front a band on their own and release an album with the best vocal performance of the year. Molly’s synth centric “Forever” proves just this. While it seems unfair to have three amazing vocalists in one band sharing the limelight, their voices meld together so perfectly. They’re the hallmark of Mother Mother, and the holy trinity of alternative rock vocals.
Photo By Mackenzie Walker
Grief Chapter is the perfect album for anyone who feels like they’re bored with the current state of music. If you’re trying to find forever, if you have days you could do without, and if you say no to having your one sweet life squeezed tight in a vice grip, then Mother Mother has just the remedy.