In the month that Bikini Kill announced the formation of a record label to celebrate their 25th anniversary, it's difficult to to keep the status of "women in rock" without keeping those trail-blazers top of mind. Of course, the point is that we shouldn't have to think about "women in rock" at all: we should be past the point of overly genderizing music. Foreign Mothers, an Austin-based three-piece, simultaneously prove that it shouldn't matter, but also that there's power in owning your gender identity, identities, or lack thereof in your own art. Their debut album Duh (Threadpull Records) couldn't have been made by a bunch of blokes and/or dudes and be what it is. This album is not about "rocking as hard as the boys". It's about rocking exactly how they want to.Plenty of punch is packed into their compact songs and "I'm Sorry If I Just Blew Your Mind, But Please Clean Up The Mess" has a stirring immediacy in the stabbing guitar slashes and anthemic bassline. The band's sense of space ultimately wins out over the aggressive delivery, with the push and pull of the rhythm section and the paranoid vocals recalling what a post-punk Sleater Kinney would sound like covering "Warhead" by UK Subs. Duh is now available from Thread Pull Records and you can hear more from Foreign Mothers on their Bandcamp.Take a listen to some of the tracks over at Ad Hoc.
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