One of the best albums of 2008
Oh My Heart
Out of Canada, Mother Mother, released an album in 2007 called "Touch Up" featuring one of the strangest albums I have seen in a long time. It featured an apparently rabid rooster head-banging with some blood talons. The album was a disappointment because it was such a hot mess. Mixing styles and rhythms, the band apparently was going for a ramshackle pixies genre splicing rock album. They unfortunately did not pull it off. So it was with trepidation that I approached "O My Heart", their new 2008 album featuring a gigantic fish head with a hook through its cheek and a bloody eye--another weird album cover.
O My Heart is everything Touch Up was not. O My Heart is a ramshackle genre splicing ode to the Pixies Doolittle featuring among other things harmonicas, gospel singers, trumpets, showtunes-like melodies (see "Wrecking Ball"), screaming, country music guitars and whole slew of other tricks. The lead single and first track on the album "O My Heart" is the most straight-forward song on the album and is not indicative of the rest of the album. If I had to guess it was made to garner radio play. Album highlights include "Ghosting", "Body of Years", "Wisdom", and well, jesus, the whole album from 1-13 is fucking awesome.