Mothers managed to bring a sizable crowd into the Southern Café and Music Hall last Monday night. The show, originally scheduled for early February, was rescheduled due to a conflict. Despite much anticipation for the headlining act, the Philadelphia-based opening act Palm ended up dominating the stage.
Mothers performed in their characteristic moody style. Their sound flooded the room in a muted, milky way. The music is classic easy-listening. Frontwoman Kristine Leschper brings folky storytelling to her deeply personal lyricism, which makes sense given the band’s genesis in Athens, Ga.
Mothers’ sound is straightforward indie rock: There is nothing to hide in the punchy drumbeats and plucked guitar melodies. The work is undoubtedly tinged with southern rock, but it manages to shed the dust and approach a cleaner, more unique style than the music of many other bands coming out of Athens.
The mash-up of Mothers’ southern balladry and Palm’s northern revival punk was at times odd to listen to. It didn’t lead to a well-rounded experience; rather, it produced an uneven layering of softer lyricism on heavy-footed musical fun. It was hard not to notice the transition between the varying sounds and to take sides as to which sound was more appealing.
Mothers has a lot to offer, but Leschper and crew put on a very conventional concert experience: they bring a natural ebb and flows to their set list, give the appropriate banter between songs and boast a cool shifting vibe. If the band were performing on its own, this would be no problem.
However, after listening to a song by Palm like “Ankles,” it becomes clear why Mothers feels paper thin in comparison. Unfortunately for Mothers, Palm has a high energy iconoclastic groove, which Mothers’ more classic style cannot compete with.
Palm delivers something completely new. The band’s near-cacophonous guitar strikes are unsettling on first listen, but repeated listens will have any crowd jolting their body with the rule-breaking drums and mercurial sounds blasting out of the speakers. Palm seems to have captured the rawness of punk and the complexity of rock, merging them seamlessly with their own genre of speaker-thumping ingenuity.
It is difficult to express this sound in words, but a quick listen to their debut LP will connect all the dots. On stage, the band appears more peaceful than their sound might suggest, but they still manage to rock audiences into anti-rhythmic dancing fun. Their sound has a mass to it, and their upbeat energy feels like it’s on an unstoppable path into America’s underground music scene.
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