Album: “MOURN”

Artist: MOURN

Release Date: February 17, 2015

Best Tracks: “Your Brain Is Made Of Candy,” “Misery Factory,” “Silver Gold”AG

FFO: Chastity Belt, Screaming Females

Straight out of Barcelona, Spain,AG indie rock outfit MOURN put out their debut self-titled LP when the quartet’s youngest member was barely 15 years old. It may be tempting to contrast their youth with the album’s “mature” sound – in other words, its fleshed out compositions and impressive production quality.

Doing so, though, would imply that young people typically don’t make albums like this – albums rich in unbridled energy, albums with songs so sure of themselves that they feel like a punch in the face, albums that are just as much love letters to the genres that inspired them as they are manifestos for tearing them down.

MOURN’s music is, of course, exactly that. Their sound could best be described as an offshoot of 2010s indie and ‘90s grunge, but even that doesn’t quite cover it.

The album begins from a place of relative stillness on “Your Brain Is Made Of Candy,”AG but quickly swells with ambition: dreamy yet dissonant guitars, booming drums and group vocal hooks all soon follow. Lead vocalist Jazz Rodríguez AGBueno competes with rock and roll’s best with her no-bullshit vocal style, adding a taste of punk to the band’s already layered sound.

The album only has a single song over three minutes, with the rest running just over a minute-and-a-half long.AG “MOURN” never feels rushed, though, despite running only a little over 20 minutes long. The young rockers move steadily forward through each track with absolute certainty, each new song another exuberant yell: “Look what I can do!”

MOURN would never have made an album like this if they weren’t young. It may be nothing groundbreaking as far as modern indie rock goes, but “MOURN” remains an exhilarating debut nonetheless, one that’s a testament to being young and realizing just how big and wonderful music can be.

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