Ten days after the release of their latest single, “Constanza,” and one year after their previous album, Baby Teeth, Fredericton’s weirdo rockers Motherhood have hit us with another genre-bending doozy. Their newest album, Dear Bongo,, straps us in and takes us on a vivid journey.
After seeing Motherhood play numerous times over the past year, we have gotten to know the majority of the tracks on Dear Bongo,. The album as a whole, however, brings the songs together and shines a new light on them.
Each track is a piece of their story of an emotionally troubled painter, who is succumbing to a certain mania in dealing with a breakup. Riddled with mentions of colour mixing and the imagery of painting, Dear Bongo, leans heavily into Motherhood’s brand of absurdity on this concept album.
Beginning with the repeated and dubious claims from the album’s starring painter that he’ll “be fine” in “Bird Chirp,” we follow his downhill slide into madness with “Way Down,” which ends in a shrill screaming match. The thick of the lunacy hits halfway in with “Costanza,” the band’s own rendition of Charlie Feathers’s rockabilly classic “Can’t Hardly Stand It.” The vocals embody feelings of absolute emotional instability and mental uncontrol, but as the track progresses into a droning psychedelic conclusion, we can sense that the painter is beginning to get a grip on his out-of-control emotions.
By the time we reach “Hallway,” the painter has begun coming to terms with his heartache and starts to see that it was for the best. In the end, “Reprise” takes us full circle by bringing back the “I’ll be fine” repetitions of “Bird Chip,” but in acoustic form. It’s soft and calm and lets us know that the storm has passed.
The album finds itself sitting somewhere in the gloriously nebulous genre of art rock, but to paint a fence around it let’s narrow it down to something like sludge-surf-punk-rockabilly-avant-garde rock ‘n’ roll. Where some experimental music might lull listeners into a trance, Motherhood slaps them in the face and keeps them on the edge of their seat.
If you’re looking for the next catchy tune you’ll be singing along to on the radio, Dear Bongo, might not be where you will find it. It’s the opposite of a work made for radio. It pushes and knocks down the boundaries of musical norms and ends up providing listeners with more of an experience than something they can dance to — though that certainly doesn’t stop the best of us from dancing to it anyway.
If you would like to experience what Motherhood has to offer, you can catch them at the Charlotte St. Arts Centre in Fredericton for their album release, or at one of their following shows.
Tour Dates:
03.01.19 – Fredericton, NB @ Charlotte Street Arts Centre
03.02.19 – Moncton, NB @ Le Caveau
03.08-09.19 – New York, NY @ New Colossus Festival
03.11.19 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Desperate Annie’s
03.15.19 – Omaha, NE @ The Down Under
03.17.19 – Denver, CO @ Lion’s Lair
03.21-23.19 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Festival
03.24.19 – Portland, OR @ The Firkin’ Tavern
03.25.19 – Eugene, OR @ Wandering Goat
03.26.19 – Portland, OR @ Waypost
03.27.19 – Seattle, WA @ Central Saloon
03.28.19 – Vancouver, BC @ Red Gate
03.30.19 – Moscow, ID @ Humble Burger
04.01.19 – Bozeman, MT @ Labor Temple
04.04.19 – Dubuque, IO @ Blu Room
04.05.19 – Kenosha, WI @ Public Craft Brewing
04.06.19 – London, ON @ B13 The Bakers Dozen
04.07.19 – Indianapolis, IN @ Melody Inn
04.08.19 – Hazel Park/Detroit, MI @ Coin House
04.10.19 – Toronto, ON @ Monarch
04.11.19 – Guelph, ON @ Kazoo! Fest
04.12.19 – Hamilton, ON @ Mills Hardware
05.09-10.19 – Brighton, UK @ The Great Escape