The Mommyheads: Delicate Friction (Dead Frog Records, 2011)
The Mommyheads concert at klubi, Turku has been one of the highlights of the year. They played for a long time and sang so beautifully. I loved it to bits. I’m not as thrilled about their latest album Delicate Friction, because it’s not style-wise totally my kind of stuff. I love their great pop singles, but at times they get a little too ambitious and progressive for my taste. It didn’t matter at all during the live concert, but at home their music doesn’t completely fall into my comfort zone. As you know, I’m a narrow-minded pop freak who prefers simple things and runs into the corner and yells for mom every time he encounters something that contains more than three chords and has lyrics that aren’t about the girl/boy the character of the song loves, has loved or is dreaming about. This is obviously my own problem and if onechord.net was an objective rock magazine I would praise their ability to mix Jellyfishque pop music and 70’s prog elements. However, there’s a lot of stuff that I do love. For example that opener I Wanna Stay that reminds me of Jellyfish a bit, the wonderful pop single Another Crowded House, the really beautiful last song Hello Friends and the amazing title track Delicate Friction that contains enough greatness for two or three songs. And even the songs that I don’t love that much as a whole contain some really magical moments, so I do like the album a lot even though it’s not totally my cup of cheese cake.
