Adelaide 5-piece Mums Favourite are back with their latest single, 'Primrose,' dropping this Friday on the 17th of September. Mums Favourite have really evolved musically, with this latest track demonstrating their mastery of vocals and instrument alike. But they've still kept to the roots woven in older tracks like 'Red Room,' with the cryptic lyrical wizardry spotted in both 'Eye Contact' and 'Jewellery Box' present in their latest single too. They're not just honing their craft, but actively exploring and interrogating it, with 'Primrose' turning their shreddometers up to threlve.
It's been a while since I've heard a truly good guitar solo. And Mums Favourite have delivered the goodies to my ear stocking in abundance this year. The song sounds as if you trapped a sweet and heady Jeff Buckley on too-much lilac wine in a basement without lights, backed up by a conglomerate of John Fusciante and The Drones (albeit with less Drones 'Strayanisms like Port Macquarie, or... cutting wool). 'Primrose' leads us down a twisting garden path, dripping with haunting guitars and lungs full of air.
The track exudes atmosphere, brought to the fore through lyricist & vocalist Sasha Theunissen's patented ivy-vined poetics. The central recurring motif for the song is a nod to Shakespeare's primrose path; an enticing path which seems intoxicating and lush, but actually leads you truly into hell. The song reflects this, slowly descending into shrieking guitars and madness. Just one snippet of the hypnotic lyrics reveal this slow fall into paranoia:
A hotel in hell / it’s so easy to tell
That I follow the thrill down to death’s carousel
Down the wallowing way / In a state of dismay
I’m blind to the red / misbehaving instead
All the stares from the strangers
I wish I had stayed there when Alice had taken
Me down and awakened the ignorance.
Musically, the track features many different time changes and grooves. I myself come from more of a hardcore / metal breakdowns-are-good background, so me likey a good ol' time change-arooni. And boy, are these some tasty morsels. We begin with a dreamy intro, slowly progressing into a punchy Latin bass groove, and then stepping back down to a sauntering slow section. From here, we get peppered with small glimpses of the monstrous guitar lurking just beneath the surface of black water, waiting to break free. The curtain threatens to close, as the most minimalist section yet whisks us away into a false sense of security - only to have the proscenium arch come tumbling down with a cascading descent into scathing guitar-fuelled lunacy.
You know it's good when your only criticism is that the guitar solo could go for longer. Seriously, that face-melter could go forever and it would still not be long enough. This isn't a bad thing at all though, because you KNOW that this song would go OFF live. I can't even imagine how much crazier and goose-bump-inducing this solo would be in the flesh at a gig, and I can't wait to buy myself a ticket once Mums Favourite come this way. Mums Favourite promise that this is only the beginning of what they're capable of:
"Primrose is just the beginning of the Mums Favourite sound and it feels like this song just dips your toes into the exploration by pushing boundaries with time signature and groove changes. We think it's a really strong song and we like the way that it flows through all the different stages, and at the end, the guitar is screaming in your face and the toms are rattling down your spine. We especially like the push and pull of the melody, the sweet parts and the big chorus where it's all about the mental confusion. We can't wait to share it with everyone."
The new single 'Primrose' is available to stream on the 17th of September, and the band are playing a show at Unibar Adelaide on the 1st of October: