ALBUM REVIEW: Mother Knows Best – Mother Vulture
After appearances at Bloodstock, ArcTanGent and Steelhouse festivals, MOTHER VULTURE have had a breakout year and they are quickly cementing themselves as household names for any music lover. Their own brand of feral blues-punk is raging its way through the UK music scene, turning heads and sparking conversation among even the most conservative of listeners. Now, those that have found themselves enamoured by the band’s fearsome and almost barbaric live performances are able to hear more in the form of their debut album Mother Knows Best.
Much like their explosive summer, this album gets off to an explosive start with the opening track Fame Or Shame. It’s full of Matt West’s thundering drums that propel the track forward. They seem to power the rest of the band up throughout until they reach maximum energy near the end for a noisy outro that screams aloud everything that MOTHER VULTURE are known for.
A vast majority of the album follows the same formula: hard-hitting, high-energy, fast-paced rock. But why bother changing up what you know if it works so well? MOTHER VULTURE have managed to make each of Brodie Maguire’s fuzzy guitar riffs on this album sound so different from the next, changing up West’s drumming and instead allowing him to take a less frantic route for the tracks that showcase guitar riffs that Josh Homme would be proud of.
Tracks like Big Bad and Vile Breed are a culmination of all the things that make MOTHER VULTURE great and let them show off exactly what has made them one of the most sought-after bands on festival-goers’ schedules. Driving four to the floor drumbeats launch each track forward into the more than capable hands of Maguire and bassist Chris Simpson, who adds that grungy fuzzy quality that fans of bands like FU MANCHU or WOLFMOTHER should be used to. The last person left to close off this game of musical pass the parcel is vocalist Georgi Valentine who does a remarkable job in melding the melodic and rugged with his unrestrained performances.
Closing track Homemaker is a sharp departure from the rest of the album’s subject matter and sentiments. A plain and simple love song, it is anything but plain or simple and instead comes with a pulsating energy and stoner rock riffs that will please even the most elitist metalheads, rockers and punks among us. It is laden with fuzzy halftime grooves that are so reminiscent of QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE you would be forgiven for thinking that they had finally released that new album.
Somehow MOTHER VULTURE have managed to take a genre and formula that we have heard so many times before and make it feel like something entirely new. They have added a brand new lease on life to what was beginning to turn into a dying genre and in doing so have cemented themselves as the new kings of British rock music. We share the same sentiment as Valentine at the end of Big Bad – quite simply “fucking yes”.
Rating: 10/10
Mother Knows Best is set for release on November 25th via self-release.
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