New Brunswick punk trio Motherhood released their third LP Winded this year and it's a definite improvement over 2019's Dear, Bingo in my opinion. Dear, Bingo was denser and more chaotic, two things that I normally like, but it also appeared to lack focus. Winded is quite a bit more orderly and sees the band better identifying and developing their strengths. Thematically, the album focuses on the ways in which nature mirrors human suffering, or rather, how we can see our own pain as reflected back at us by the world. Motherhood is well suited to explore these motifs as they have a swampy kind of backwater vibe to their music, which they then take pains to filter through the urban, hippy freakouts, indie-kid melodicism, and patterns borrowed from back-packing hip-hop. The easiest identified touch point to the band's sound is probably the Osees (or whatever John Dwyer calls his band these days), but Motherhood are not quite as indulgent as Dwyer tends to get, and the reigning in of some of their impulses is what makes Winded superior in my estimation. The LP kicks off with the two-parter "Crawly" which begins with a break-beat and a Radiator Hospital-esque, hooky careen before bulking up into a muscular, sasquatch stomp. The combination of baroque pop, hillbilly swagger and greaser R'nB melodies on "Shepherd" is beguiling and alluring, while the sparky "Tabletop" sounds like Tilly and the Wall directing the path of a GTO by tapdancing directions on the hood to the blindfolded driver in a whimsical variant of morse code. "Ripped Sheet" is the most chaotic track, harkening back to Dear, Bingo with its elastic, jumpy rhythms, sci-fi soundscapes, and busy, rushing melody, but with all of the extraneous features shone off- a perfectly circular cannonball of indie glory crashing into the battery of your ear holes. And then there are the parts that more than concede to the Moherbaord being a folk-punk band at heart, like the maudlin, campfire strum of "Brakes Snap," the chamber-country bow and curtsy, call and reply of "Shuttered Down," and the M.Ward-esque western-blues jam "Trees." Motherhood really honed in on the special particulars and potentials of their sound on Winded and it paid off in a big way. This record is a hoot!
