When we organized all our contributions for Consouling Sounds‘ live event at the beginning of October, they offered us an interview with a band from Ostend (right on the Belgian coast) and we were quite baffled because we had never heard of the band before. But after hearing the band Thorsten was just short of banging his head on the wall for the band is nothing short of terrific! They invented a term for their kind of music and usually those self-given terms are just another way of getting around calling your Amenra-clone “post-metal” even though that is what you really play. Mother play “Post-Blackgaze”
When trying to come up with an idea of what post-blackgaze could be, one quickly arrives at the notion that it’s blackgaze (or atmospheric black metal) with even more post-rock elements, even more atmospheric drive. And in some ways that is really true for their debut I which the band consisting of brothers Tuur and Toen and their bassist Linn had already self-released in 2020 and which is now picked up by fellow-Belgians Consouling Sounds who just now have also published Mother’s second release, the EP Interlude 1. Those readers who have a close eye on the text might be wondering “A first interlude?” Yes, a first one between their debut and the next full-length and the name is not a coincidence, but part of a larger picture.
The band took their name not from Danzig but from the concept behind their seemingly already laid-out discography: they want to depict a rather untypical mother-child-relationship in which the mother is not the caretaker but fills a very un-motherly position. A not-loving, not-caring position but one of selfishness and motherly “incompetence” or “inadequacy”. The story of that mother will be laid out across three full-lengths and two EP, each being an interlude. Thus we can see that the band has got something to say.
On I that is quite a lot as the record with seven numbered songs is nearly 44 minutes long and the blackgaze elements are really obvious on the record, for example in track ”I.II” (Pt. I, Track II.”: the nine-minute monster is full of really trippy, highly atmospheric parts and passages. The track has one eruption in the middle after a long build-up phase and interestingly in many of their passages one can hear the obvious post-metal parallels like Amenra or Bossk – nevertheless, there are also passages which remind one of Tool; sometimes it’s the bass-line or the Keenan-like whisper-singing. There might be worse comparisons, but behold! Those are reminiscences – most of the tracks are pure blackgaze (or Post-Blackgaze) magic!
And just recently the trio has released Interlude 1 and it shows that they do not want to fall into the trap that many bands can’t get over: They do not become calmer or “more atmospheric” (as many bands proclaim to become) but the one track on it is not only their longest with more than 13 minutes but also one of their strongest. It starts in the middle of a whirlwind of thunderous black metal and keeps that speed up for longer than most bands would. And then they basically re-start the track with an approach that is a bit more atmospheric and even a bit progressive. That way they keep the fire burning and the structures variable. Furthermore, they are able to accentuate the black in blackgaze a bit more so that one can see their roots somewhat stronger.
This EP is the prelude to the next album, probably called II and man I can hardly wait for it. Next time, I will also be very well aware of who Mother is. Not just a Danzig song, but also a highly-skilled and intriguing band from Ostend, Belgium!
