ALBUM REVIEW: Hidden Mothers – ‘Erosion / Avulsion’

The need for communal spaces, real-life ones, feels more relevant than ever. The continuing spat-inducing bonfires online feel like they’ve reached their apex. The call for familiar, cosy places full of wonderful people you can converse with normally is strong.

This is exactly how I feel reading that Sheffield’s Hidden Mothers, a band at the forefront of UK’s harder music (and unsurprisingly at home on the wonderful cultivated Church Road record label), mostly met through their former vocalist’s job as a barber. The thrum of clippers, a television blurting out The Box in the corner (does that still exist?), the possibility of a strong espresso or gin and tonic if you were decent—what a joy! In the case of the band, a love for a bit of Deafheaven, hardcore, minimalist techno, and all manner of great creative endeavours was all it took to get them into a room outside the hairdressers into a studio to make some of their own.

Collectives thrive in smashing these influences together and making something fresh and exciting. Hidden Mothers have felt that way since their introduction in 2020: crushing lows of sludge, the ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ vocal interplay that defined the aughts, happy sounding tremolos taking black-metal from hell to heaven, and even a sense of humour that make their band-to-fan interactions feel as authentic as being together IRL. They quickly developed their sonic cluster sound that even found post-rock and Radiohead indie sensibilities through the production smarts of their own Nigel Godrich, Joy Clayton, which has been tightly wound in their long-awaited debut full-length Erosion / Avulsion.

On the whole, the album couldn’t sound further away from its namesake. There are no crumbling edges or a tearing away from what makes Hidden Mothers the band they are, more a reinforced building (even if it is a creepy hotel surrounded by the fantastical woods of its artwork). Single Defanged takes no prisoners in its breathless beginning. Haunting leads permeate the background behind a full-on rush. Liam Knowles’ bark is wonderfully immediate, a foil to the higher register singing from guitarist Luke Scrivens that both drape over breakdowns and outros taking an accomplished nod to ‘00s post-hardcore. Violet Sun similarly brings out the octave chords and chugs for its main foundation, but builds into a trudging piece with little drum and guitar variations to keep the train moving. Death Curl also prominently features Knowles’ driving bass under glossy leads that delves close to screamo territory. It’s all testament to their handling of music they love, refashioned.

Most tracks feature multiple changes from the gnarly to the heady. This opening formula gets turned on its head for Still Sickness, which mostly holds back on heaviness to let dreamy soundscapes and pulsating bass rings govern the action. A midway shift to clean channels in The Grey doesn’t stop Adam Kossowicz’s hurried drumming which transitions away from frantic cymbal rushes (under the guitars’ noticeably darker tones) towards a pummelling that complements Knowles’ high-lung-capacity bark. The most prominent misstep may be Grandfather, a lament whose tone mimics an opening sequence to a TV show about a troubled detective—“still a wretched old man with his hands on the reins, he’s got blood on his suit”—that feels an unwelcome left-turn breather from more exemplary building pieces. Ending in a ‘best until last’ fashion is Haze, a cut played live the past few years that transports us back to 2008 in the best possible way, and features a trudging finale that plays out beautifully, like being gently lowered back to earth from space travel.

Mostly, Erosion / Avulsion feels like a proper arrival for a band that’s been putting in the work following just a handful of releases. Giving fans a full suite to chew over is a great thing, and one that’ll fuel a string of growing live sets to come. Ironically, considering their name alludes to an old Victorian technique of covering a mother in cloth to hold children still for photographs (with strange, ghostly results), it’s doubtful Hidden Mothers will remain part of the backdrop in UK heavy music for long. Instead, they’ll surely unfurl their well-crafted vision further for us all to see and hear.

For fans of: Cult of Luna, Birds In Row, MØL

‘Erosion / Avulsion’ by Hidden Mothers is released on 29th November on Church Road Records.

Words by Elliot Burr