The Mother Hips

The Mother Hips’ album Kiss the Crystal Flake opens with a statement of unfinished business: “the purpose of my mission was to see the ocean / I have not seen the ocean”. The album continues much like the opening two lines… it aims high, but falls just short.

The songs are pleasantly mellow in places (notably “Wicked Tree”) – the kind of mellow where you play it while slowly making coffee alone in your kitchen. “Wicked Tree” itself is a perfectly decent song, it’s just that the remaining songs on the album don’t make enough of a departure from it. The songs begin to blend together, although “Confirmation of Love” is a refreshing break.

Near the end of the album, the Mother Hips rally themselves and turn out “White Headphones,” a fantastic song that made me turn up the volume almost immediately, “Time-sick song of a grizzly bear,” and “In This Bliss,” an engagingly thoughtful song that sounds like longing. Overall, the album is worth listening to, but their mission to “see the ocean” – with the ocean’s connotations of vastness and freedom – was not quite met.  [ END ]

Track Listing:

01. Mission In Vain
02. Wicked Tree
03. Time We Had
04. No-Name Darrell
05. Let Somebody
06. Confirmation Of Love
07. Tgim
08. White Hills
09. Not So Independent
10. White Headphones
11. Time-Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear
12. In This Bliss

Run Time: 47:17