MOTHERNIGHT – Mothernight

Mothernight is a rookie Polish Heavy Metal band that seems to be a veteran when it comes to irony: Mother Night is the title of a well-regarded novel by Kurt Vonnegut about an American who moves to Europe after World War I and eventually becomes a Nazi propagandist and ends up facing charges of being a war criminal. Mothernight’s website has a story about how Mothernight is some kind of supernatural deity that watches over people, so who knows? If nothing else, it can add a bit of subtext to the music.

Anyhow, Mothernight’s self-titled debut album is why you’re reading this, right? Mothernight’s maiden voyage disc is a dozen tracks in length and includes a bonus song tacked on at the end, a cover of Shakespeare’s Sister’s “Hello.” The album runs for 69 minutes, but about 15 minutes of that is silence that leads off the bonus track; go put some laundry in the washing machine to fill the time until the actual song starts to play.

Press clippings claim that Mothernight plays a mixture of Gothic and Industrial Metal, among a few other types of music. In a way this is correct, but any Industrial influences on this album are minute at best. It’s also sort of Gothic, but lacks a certain level of “darkness” associated with that style of music. Mothernight’s actual style is kind of hard to pigeonhole: they sound unique, but at the same time they sound like a few other bands that you can’t quite put a finger on. Let’s just say they play a slower-paced, atmospheric type of Metal and leave it at that.

Whatever type of Metal Mothernight specializes in, they’re pretty good at it. The songs are turgidly atmospheric, thematically dark and mostly slow, with some sparing electronic noises and keyboards, and a good dose of chunky guitar riffs. The production on this album is quite thick and layered, which helps push the music over the top. Vocalist Freya has a good voice: it’s a bit raspy and gritty, which adds a lot to the songs. They use a few effects on her voice from time to time as well, with good results. But like lots of European vocalists who sing in English, Freya’s accent is pretty noticeable. It’s not a big deal though.

Not counting the 15 minutes of dead air and the short atmospheric track “The Dawn” which comes across as filler (good-sounding filler mind you, but filler nonetheless) and nothing more, Mothernight is a solid album, with songs like “Another Chance,” “Shadowsblack,” “Resurrect Me,” “Waiting To Die” and “Hunger” being the best, with strong playing and lots of atmosphere. These songs are all slow to mid-paced, with heavy grooves and good riffs. The band does rock out towards the end with a couple of more catchy, straight-ahead Metal stompers in “Don’t Wanna Listen” and “Infect Your Soul,” showing that they can let their hair down and have some fun if they choose to do so.

Bonus track “Hello” isn’t too shabby, although it’s a bit of an odd choice for a cover, being too sunny and happy for a band like Mothernight; while they do darken it up somewhat, there’s only so much you can do to make a song written by a member of Bananarama sound edgy and downbeat. Still, it’s not bad.

Mothernight gets off to a good start with their self-titled debut. Recommended.