Hidden Mothers – Erosion / Avulsion (Recommendation)

How awesome is this cover?! On the one hand it looks like the re-imagination of an 8-bit-era-zombie-survival-game end-screen, but instead of the well known Spencer-Mansion we have a 28 days later tower block in the middle of the woods. On the other hand we have this thing called “Wimmelbücher” (comparable to “Where is Wally?”) in Germany. This tower block with the flare-holding person on top sure has horrifying tales to tell.

Erosion / Avulsion is the long-awaited debut album by Sheffield’s Hidden Mothers and has a lot for the listener to discover. It’s impressive how many different musical styles are progressed here: Post-Black Metal, Post-Hardcore, Screamo, just to name a few. Every song paints a detailed picture that unravels itself before the listener.

Three recurring elements, darkness, rage and hope can be found almost cyclically in the majority of these songs. The cover serves as a foreshadowing for the songs of the album. “Still Sickness” or the mentioned “Haze” are the “go-to-songs” when you want to see how those three things interplay gloriously. Thrice is a band I hear several times on this record. Songs like “Grandfather” or “Haze” (you wouldn’t believe that this is not Dustin Kensrue singing there), both could have been a great fit on the Alchemy Index (Earth) or (Fire).

Church Road Records and Hidden Mothers gift us with a very strong album at the end of this year. Post Hardcore and Black Metal come together in a wonderful way and show us that this is a combination a lot of us didn’t know but surely will love and cherish in the upcoming years.