Mothers’ latest, “Render Another Ugly Method,” opens unlike any other Mothers album. Granted, there’s only been one other release by the group led by singer-songwriter Kristine Leschper. On their sophomore LP, quiet mandolin plucking is traded in for deep, brooding and crisp chorus-heavy electric guitar, and fragile vocal vibrato is swapped for dreamy, confident and lethargic delivery.

Their first release, “When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired”, was successful and received a score of 7.1 on Pitchfork, spawning a myriad of touring dates. It’s clear that, in leading up to their latest, Leschper’s taste in creation has changed significantly. This may be due to the extensive exposure of extensive touring, playing with many new bands and hearing new sounds. This is the environment in which you most grow as an artist, surrounded by a conveyor-belt of other ambitious individuals and groups.

In a Reddit AMA, Leschper commented on the change.

“With these songs I was trying different writing methods, more of a cut up/collaged process.”

Coming to popularity in the middle of the 20th century, this process, involving the mixture of unrelated phrases and sentences, is known for its exposure in the musical world, and it would come to no surprise that much of “Render Another Ugly Method” took advantage of this depersonalized method of writing.

In “BEAUTY ROUTINE”, Leschper sings “I stand up. A little white mouse with tiny red eyes, watching your gnashing teeth. Tell me how happy I can be.” It’s in the realm of possibility that parts of these lyrics came together from opposite sides of the page. However, the new juxtaposition conveys an intended message. It points out her insignificance as a red-eyed mouse watching gnashing teeth, either an attribute of anger or desperate smiling. She’s looking for validation from the inhabiter of these “teeth”, which can be interpreted to be the everyday human being. What’s left is a song about the desperate and mindless routine of maintaining appearance.

Along with her newfound writing style, Leschper seems to have let her band move a couple of steps forward. With “WYWALDYAT”, the songs were written alone by Leschper in her apartment, making for a more individualized set of songs, eventually backed by a full band. With “Render Another Ugly Method”, “It was a much more collaborated effort than the first record,” according to a Reddit comment by Leschper. And it’s clear in the instrumentation. The concise no-wave in songs like “BAPTIST TRAUMA” and “WEALTH CENTER / RISK CAPITAL” can only be achieved through careful planning by all band members, because however significantly Mothers can persuade you otherwise, dissonance has the potential to sound awful.

In all the lyrical intention and experimental incursion, the greatness of the record lies in the pieces as a whole. Leschper tweeted a description of the album as “an assemblage of personal vignettes and imagined scenarios that examines consent, escape of the body, power & powerlessness, and the act of making.” What is heard in these songs is Leschper’s more respectful grasp of that “act of making”, a satisfyingly communal creativity. Leschper summarized this stance in the Reddit AMA, “I like to think of creativity this way – never as the solitary act of genius, but rather the synthesis of different inspirations through individualized perspective.”

Rating: 4/5 sails

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