Mourn - Sorpresa Familia - VINYL LP

Black vinyl. It's tempting to intellectualize Font, the Austin-based quintet whose driving music of sampled stabs, dance beats, and euphoric choruses could be labeled with all manner of hyphenated pseudo-genres (Inchart-rock,Inch Inchdance-punk,Inch Inchnoise-popInch). However, their music quickly makes clear the inadequacy of those kinds of labels. As drummers Jack Owens and Logan Wagner lock into a co-constructed groove, Roman Parnell's bass bridges the kinetic back line to multi-instrumentalist and environment-shaper Anthony Laurence. From this density emerge frontman Thom Waddill's associative lyrics and electric-shock dance. Font's debut album Strange Burden shows the band both translating the intensity of their live shows into the studio and polishing the surfaces of their music to juxtapose and dislocate genres with a quick-footed, nearly pop-art sensibility. Patchworked over years of improvising, playing, recording and re-recording both in studios and at home, Strange Burden is the fever-dream document of Font's nascent stage. It careens from precipice to precipice, revelation to revelation; over the course of a lean 28 minutes, the record covers a dizzying amount of ground. It draws from the past - New Wave, No Wave, rock, punk, pop - but rejects nostalgia, relentlessly pushing their influences into the future.

Mourn is a very young quartet formed from the friendship of Jazz Rodreguez Bueno and Carla Parez Vas- both born in 1996 in El Maresme, Catalonia, Spain. The duo armed themselves with inspiration from PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Sebadoh and Sleater Kinney and began writing material, which they quickly released on their YouTube channel. Despite being teenagers, earlier this year they came out of the studio (along with drummer Antonio Postius and bassist Leia Rodreguez ) with a brilliant treatise of indie rock that has stunned those who have had the opportunity to listen to it.

Mourn knows quite a bit about setbacks, but a latent belief persists within the negative will eventually become positive. It's the belief in the wonder of resilience. It's the name they chose for their new album Self Worth.The band isn't the same as when they formed. The world isn't either. Mourn grew up, and that's evident in the songs that make up Self Worth. Their melodies - energetic and captivating - venture into less level grounds, and their lyrics show a newfound readiness to tackle issues of a different weight and size.InchMenInch is lyrically patent proof of this growth, and their heightened consciousness as women. A revealing song, necessary and deliberately uncomfortable. A beautiful melody of war against patriarchy; the impulsive rescue of the riot grrrl. Certain needs stand out through the album leaving behind abusive ties, externalizing the interior noise. InchWe talked a lot about getting out of toxic situations - not resigning ourselves to that, not enduring that anymore. The songs are like flags to stand up and say 'we are done.'Inch Just as InchStay ThereInch draws a limit and InchApathyInch spits truth in your face, InchCall You BackInch seems to paint that instance in which love paralyzes, and InchI'm In TroubleInch turns exasperated voices into machine guns. Punk assault with a clear message the body speaks when the mind is not well.Mourn is an enclave of post-teens dealing with the dilemmas of adult life. InchThis album gave us what we needed self-worth, the desire to go forward, to love ourselves, with everything, with the good and bad. This album empowers us.Inch