Mother Mother look back to move forward on Nostalgia, and yes, it gets weird, in the most Mother Mother way possible.
Two decades deep and still dancing with the weird, Mother Mother’s tenth studio album, Nostalgia, is both a celebration and a reckoning. Released in conjuction with the band’s 20th anniversary, the record leans not on commercial sheen or trend-chasing but on instinct, emotion, and a reawakening of the creative spark that lit their early days.
The Vancouver art-rock outfit, long celebrated for their off-kilter lyricism, kinetic harmonies, and genre-bending sonics, return to their roots without ever sounding regressive. Nostalgia doesn’t just nod to the past, it refracts it. Like a unicorn in a funhouse mirror - the band’s chosen symbol for the record - it’s fantastical, elusive, and proudly strange.
Musically, this is a study in intentional restraint. Where past records often built up a maximalist wall of sound, Nostalgia breathes. It's a dynamic record that lives in its quiet spaces as much as its explosive choruses. Gone is the need to overproduce or compete with the volume wars. Instead, it’s the song that drives every decision, from the snare drum tones to the mic placement. The lyrics traverse familiar areas - existential spirals, gender identity, self-love clashing with self-loathing, and metaphysical musing, all painted across surrealist landscapes populated by mythical beasts. It’s both deeply introspective yet theatrical in scope. Alienation has never sounded so whimsical. Or so sincere.
This isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, it’s about rediscovering what matters. “We asked ourselves how each decision made us feel,” the band says. If it didn’t evoke laughter, tears, or goosebumps, they let it go. That guiding principle, one of pure emotional barometer over analytics or expectation, makes Nostalgia feel like a rebirth. One born not of industry demands, but of artistic freedom.