Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Awaiting the Mothership

In the DISCOVER section of Spotify, it will say things like "You listened to so-and-so, you might like these-other-folks!" or "You haven't listened to Debbie Gibson in a while. Listen now?" or "Your friend  likes Stryper. Check it out?"

One of the bands that fit under the first statement is Texas' Mothership.  Apparently there are a lot of bands out there named Mothership. Most of them seem to be cover bands, including one Led Zeppelin tribute band. These guys are a tribute in that they salute the 60s and 70s hard rock and heavy blues bands of days gone by. A lot of bands do this kind of stuff but most of them unfortunately can't quite pull it off. Mothership, surprisingly in a way, do. The lyrics are...well let's just say it..sort of dumb in spots. For example "City Nights" talks about rock n roll being here to stay and how they are ready to fight and yadda yadda yadda.

But a band like this isn't agreeable because of the lyrics. Or the vocals, which are kind of meh, but are very happily crystal clear so that you can hear the guy is really singing, so I really do dig that. But it's all about the riffs, man.

And the awesome album cover. See said awesome-ness there ----->

But mostly the riffs. The jams are classic sounding 70s hard rock veering into metal. Like the side 1 closer "Angel Of Death", it's got a killer Richie Blackmore-esque lick that drives the song. "City Nights" has the wanting lyrics but it's no worse than any Scorpions song (that's a compliment). The album opens with a wicked-cool instrumental "Hallucination" before segueing right into "Cosmic Rain." The back side opens with a "Win Or Lose," which could have been a bonus track off some expanded edition of Never Say Die. It has songs that every hard rock record should have: songs about eagles and guys in charge of the moon and some weird word that looks like a girl' name. She's probably  the busty angel on the cover. Or at least a witch.

The band is a power trio from where I grew up...Dallas, Texas. Two brothers and a guy named Judge.  The bassist kind of look like Kim Thayil from Soundgarden. The lead singer looks like the fat violin guy from Kansas. The drummer looks like a drummer. The LP comes with a poster, which is fucking cool and should be in every metal record, that shows a wall of Orange speaker cabinets, so that immediately makes these near and dear to my heart.

Jokes aside, I like this record a lot. Music is supposed to be fun and this record is fun! It's not as inventive as Kylesa or as wicked as Blood Ceremony or as retro as Kadaver or as scary as Baroness but it's incredibly, incredibly solid heavy rock.

Here they are doing their thing with "Win Or Lose."


1 comment:

  1. With a name like "Mothership" arent you obligated by law to include some Parliment/Funkadelic?

    Or

    With a name like "Mothership" arent you living in constant fear of the wrath of George Clinton's legal team?

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