Album Review: Menomena - Moms

Portland trio Menomena's esoteric menagerie of sounds and multilayered songs have been a hotbed of playful noodlings that are at once dizzying and exciting in scope and vision – no one sounds quite like them. However, their last release Mines was a disappointment, with the visceral playfulness displaced for a more sombre tone and, not long after, Brent Knopf left camp. The remaining duo Justin Harris and Danny Seim soldiered on and Moms is surprisingly a massive return to form; a bombastic pyre of ingenuity that manages to be a purge and celebration all at once.

Moms is the closest they have come to pure pop since their brilliant Friend And Foe of 2007 and, despite the downsizing, it's busier than ever. More instruments are brought into the mix (flute and cello meeting the saxophone, myriad synths, glockenspiel, marimba, guitars and drums), yet it somehow doesn't collapse from the weight. The subject matter is more apparent also, with both members writing five songs apiece that broaches how their mothers' presence and absence shaped them. Whether it's direct (as in the maudlin Baton, with the heartrending lines “I wish these memory lanes promoted growth instead of fear/ I wish I wasn't forced to rob a grave to pull you near”) or more flippant and obtuse (Skintercourse's observations of a relationship fracturing in awkwardly amusing increments), Moms is one of the most lyrically creative albums of the year. Every track features a number of sonic shifts and yet, despite the weighted topics, is ebullient, miraculously straddling the line between caustic wit and blood-raw emotion with ease.

Moms corrals a myriad of ideas into a rigid pop song structure and delivers a statement that sometimes less is more.