Free jazz, hip-hop, punk, and thrash metal all battle against oppression on Morose with the exhilaration of a loud, cathartic noise. The multidisciplinarians in the Young Mothers gleefully cram notes ripped from each genre into spaces barely big enough to hold them on their second LP. On “Black Tar Caviar,” Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s thudding bass, Stefan Gonzalez’s unhinged growl, and Jonathan Horne’s shredding guitar grind under Jawwaad Taylor’s philosophical rap and Jason Jackson’s spherical sax. Drummer Frank Rosaly, meanwhile, whips around as if he stumbled across his colleagues playing different songs in the same room. The amalgam goes down smooth in the funky, jazz-hop of “Attica Black” and metallic jazzcore explosion “Jazz Oppression,” but the energy spewing from smashing atoms remains. “Osaka” and “Francisco” take relatively straight post-bop detours. On paper, it all sounds too eclectic for its own good, but the musicians’ deep understanding and virtuosity pull fierce focus on Morose.
This article appears in September 7 • 2018.
