I’ve travelled to B.C. a couple of times, and it’s always been a pleasant experience, but I must’ve been missing something. It seems to be home to some of the happiest bands on the planet. Birthplace of power-happy power-poppers the New Pornographers, and now ultra-smilers Mother Mother. And it’s a very specific brand of happy. If you’ve heard the New Pornographers before, you have a pretty good idea of what Mother Mother sounds like. Synth-tinged power-pop jams that pretty much necessitate moving your hips or torso in a silly fashion. One of the catchier tunes on the album, “My Baby Don’t Dance,” is a bit of a paradox, because any Baby not dancing would simply need to listen their eponymous song. It’s like a logic loop. Don’t think too hard about it. Mother Mother seem to thrive on dance-worthy beats, because when it’s time to make serious-face serious music, such as “Simply Simple,” they seem to falter a little bit. The slower jams seem to stretch, but are mercifully few and far between. They’re not terrible, but after the first half of the album, their cliched melancholy is a bit of a bringdown, and not in the way they were intending. It’s just plain old boring music bringdown. So don’t let the New Pornographers references lull you into thinking this is a successor to Mass Romantic. Mother Mother still has some practice to get in at balance and consistency. Still, despite the old second-half blues, this new Mother Mother joint is a hand-clappin’, knee-slappin’, toe-tappin’, happy-happenin’ good time. Just turn it off after “Born in a Flash.” (Last Gang Records, http://mothermothersite.com/) David Nowacki
