ALBUM REVIEW: Cyberfunk! – Mother’s Cake

The modern psychedelic rock scene sees its fair share of copycats and non-starters so it’s not enough to ride the forged path of genre pioneers for an easy launch-pad to success – shaking off the drag of anonymity requires character and innovation. So far, MOTHER’S CAKE’s answer of gratifying funk-fused psych-rock has been hard to deny, with three worthy LPs already in the bank, and despite their rise through the ranks not being quite so indomitable as KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD or TAME IMPALA, the band’s creative spark shows no sign of dimming. Having said that, their new record, Cyberfunk!, is an odd one. More than ever, the band has worn their influences on their sleeves and their vocation for genre-smashing has met heightened levels of ambition – the resulting identity crisis is arguably responsible for some of the band’s best batch of tracks yet they float freely, unconnected by an overarching vision; but is that a bad thing?

Unlike their acclaimed back catalogue, the path Cyberfunk! treads is divergent, unpredictable and partially disjoined. Gone are the expected, yet by no means uninspired, 50-minutes of funk-psych fusion and instead Cyberfunk! opts for a multifarious rush through music history in a sound palette that swings everywhere from PINK FLOYD to ARCTIC MONKEYS. With such an emphasis on diversity, you’d be forgiven for thinking this sight-seeing tour might just be a time capsule of cliches and half-baked ideas but fortunately, this is exactly where the MOTHER’S CAKE excels.

With an obvious admiration for those the album draws from, the band pays great homage to the various styles with a dense and intense soundscape that require a lot of aural unpacking. Tapedeck, the token introduction track, is a nice false-start as a cassette tape loads in – accompanied by the fumbling of plastic – and presages the chaos in the track to come with a low-fi variant of Toxic Brother‘s main riff. At just over two and a half minutes, Toxic Brother doesn’t have much to say but makes its point well. It’s a frenetic piece of psych-rock that winds out of a vivacious riff that then falls into staccato and vocal effect-driven melodies ripped straight from KING GIZZARD’s Nonagon Infinity. Crystals In The Sky keeps a tight grip on the momentum and remains comfortable in the band’s arena of fuzzy guitars, crunchy drums and warm bass riffs – all accented by ethereal production to help transport the mind elsewhere. 

So far it’s par for the MOTHER’S CAKE course but, with retrospect, you realise that the band’s aces are just beginning to leave the sleeves. I’m Your President bursts onto stage with little warning from the prior track’s delicate finishing moments in an outrageous psych-meets-punk mashup where vocalist, Yves Krismer, holds not an ounce of vigour back in a performance reminiscent of Zack de la Rocha’s venomous deliveries. Moving forward, it becomes clear that a punk track belittling the US president was a mere taster for this record’s inscrutable road map. The 200mph riffs grind to a halt as the gentle sway and head-bob groove of Love Your Smell takes hold – a salient moment showing off the band’s flexibility – complete with soulful backing vocals and Krismer‘s blues-inspired wails. It’s an uncomfortable emergency stop for the album but Cyberfunk!, restless as we approach the mid-point, doesn’t give you a chance to question it’s movements before it shapeshifts once more.

The Operator sets a brooding cyberpunk landscape that borrows from the best of MUSE‘s Simulation Theory, Cybernova is an ethereal trip to a cosmic realm, Hit On Your Girl is a new-wave funk jam where Krismer manifests a blend of Micheal Jackson and Robert Plant, Lonely Rider is the best song ARCTIC MONKEY’s never wrote on Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino (until it turns into a spaced-out fever dream, of course) and The Beetle is true to its namesake with the odd flash of Abbey Road worship. Feeling lost? By the third time around it’s all part of the fun. Strangely, the band encounter few problems when leaving their rulebook at home – with the exception of Gloria taking its time to get moving – and instead, it’s when they delve into their familiar interludes of trip-hazards where things become a little predictable. They’re serviceable, for sure, but in an album characterised by its creativity, it often feels like the band is slipping into autopilot.  

Truth be told, Cyberfunk! is a demanding listen and one could easily argue that it never truly finds its footing with so many drastic U-turns and complimentary nods to other artists’ but when it’s written at this level of quality it can be hard to hold a grudge. Difficult not to recommend to any fan of any type of rock music, the Austrian triplet has outdone themselves in a grand homage to the very cornerstones of music they had likely plucked their own signature sound from. Trying to consume this as a traditional record going from point A to point B is a task of redundancy, the best course is to sit back and enjoy the show in all its weird harmonious discordance – it’s one hell of a ride. 

Rating: 8/10 

Cyberfunk! is out now via Membran.

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