On Cold Beat's previous albums, the tension between their stripped-down instrumentation and Hannah Lew's rich melodies and lyrics made their music all the more bittersweet. However, on Mother, they give their intimate perspectives on big-picture topics an equally massive sound. "Prism," with its triumphantly gliding synths and sleek beats, feels like the logical, and maximal, end to Cold Beat's fusion of post-punk and synth pop. Meanwhile, "Through" crashes onto the dancefloor with some of the project's most kinetic grooves ...
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On Cold Beat's previous albums, the tension between their stripped-down instrumentation and Hannah Lew's rich melodies and lyrics made their music all the more bittersweet. However, on Mother, they give their intimate perspectives on big-picture topics an equally massive sound. "Prism," with its triumphantly gliding synths and sleek beats, feels like the logical, and maximal, end to Cold Beat's fusion of post-punk and synth pop. Meanwhile, "Through" crashes onto the dancefloor with some of the project's most kinetic grooves, an apt choice for the project's DFA debut. It's also fitting that the changes Cold Beat made to their music reflected changes in their lives. Just as the project's first single was inspired by the death of Lew's father, she wrote Mother while she was pregnant and contemplating what it would be like to bring a new life into the turbulent, polarized world of the late 2010s and early 2020s (she's most direct about her worries on the driving title track, where she asks, "Mother, will they drop the bomb?"). As Lew broadened Cold Beat's sonics, she also broadened its lineup. While 2017's Chaos by Invitation was almost a solo album, this time she reunited with frequent collaborator Kyle King and added Sean Monaghan and Luciano Talpini Aita to the fold (this incarnation of Cold Beat also recorded A Simple Reflection, an EP of Eurythmics covers that foreshadowed the transformation the band was undergoing while recording this album). Despite all these changes, Lew's love of sci-fi inspired sounds remains strong, and Mother is filled with robotically clanking beats and swelling synth strings that convey the eerie majesty of space. On "Smoke," it feels like she's singing in a tin can far above the world while synths twinkle around her like starlight. Like much of the best synth pop, Mother's chilliness heightens the warmth and poignancy of Lew's voice and feelings on songs as wide-ranging as the delicate musings of "Paper," the Beach House-like introspection of "Double Sided Mirror," and the deceptively bouncy "Pearls," which boasts a happy yet heartbreaking chord progression that recalls "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." By the time they return to terra firma with the subtly comforting "Flat Earth," Cold Beat's rebirth is complete: Mother unites the strengths Lew and company have developed for nearly a decade into songs that are even more moving because of their polish. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi
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