Scene: A small,
sparsely populated lecture hall. The
type of room you find at every college the world over. A frumpy looking administrator stands behind
a podium in the center of a well-lit elevated platform. He looks non-enthusiastic.
"It is with a modicum of pleasure that I introduce our
distinguished speaker for the evening...a, uh...someone who...well, he...oh the
heck with it! I have absolutely no idea
who this man is or what he is going to talk about. Please welcome...what's your name
again?"
"Penfold."
"Penfold? You
can't be seri...you know what? I don't
care. Please welcome Penfold."
Complete silence greets the new speaker as he walks to the
podium.
"Hello everybody.
As the beaten down shell of a man who introduced me mentioned, my name
is Penfold. I was asked to come here
today to give a lecture on new advancements in molecular science technology that
no one in this room cares about. Let me
see a show of hands. Who out there is
here by choice?"
There is no movement from anyone in the audience.
"That's what I thought.
Alright, then I've reached a decision.
I'm not going to leave because I need the speaking fee to help pay off a
miniscule percentage of my student loan debt, but I'm also not going to talk
about some newly designed pipette. No,
I'm going to talk about something I find interesting: gravitons."
A small voice is heard from the back of the room.
"What's a graviton?"
"A graviton, young lady, is a particle yet to be
discovered that people like myself believe effects the force of gravity between
objects. My apologies if that question
was voiced by a dude. I can't see you
under these lights and the voice sounded feminine."
Another voice breaks the silence.
"What's so special about gravitons? Don't we kind of understand gravity
already?"
"The answer to that question is we don't really
know. All we have are
hypotheticals. I believe in gravitons
like I believe in dark energy. My most
radical thought on these particles is that they are unmothered. I believe that they existed at the awakening
of the universe, that they are a spectre of the incredibly distant past, a
trancendor that is fundamental to life as we know it today."
A snarky comment is thrown out by a young man slouching in
his seat.
"That's great, but what about the second
question?"
"There was no second question."
Slightly confused, the young man shifted to an almost
upright position and persevered.
"Yes there was.
That guy asked why you were talking about this at all since we already
understand gravity perfectly well.
What's the point?"
"I'm sorry. I
didn't hear a word of that after 'yes there was'. You see, I have this bothersome filter in my
brain that automatically tunes out idiots and their moronic babbling. Now, where was I? Ah yes, gravitons being unmothered!"
Greetings waveriders!
Thanks for dropping by the site.
I'm glad you're here. Today I am
going to let you in a secret that the state of Texas,
Austin
specifically, is attempting to keep from you.
You see Texas is such a big state, and
the city of Austin
houses so many bands per capita, that they thought they could hide the
existence of this group from everyone else.
Well I'm here to put an end to that nonsense! It's high time that all of you waveriders
learned of Unmothered and their
glorious self titled EP.
Unmothered, in
case you skipped the introductory paragraph, call Austin, Texas
home. How did I hear about them? Through blind luck that's how! Okay, maybe there was slightly less luck
involved since I discovered them at the Ripple Music sponsored Metroplex
HeavyFest III in Dallas, Texas. The
thing is that when I ran down the list of bands performing at the festival with
Racer and Pope, Unmothered was the
one act that none of us had heard beforehand. They were a completely unknown entity, and
they grabbed my attention before they played their first song.
If you're at all familiar with Ripple Music than you will
have a pretty good idea about the type of bands who play at a Ripple Music
sponsored event. We're talking about
hard rock/heavy metal bands rooted in or directly inspired by the masters of
the 1970s. Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin,
etc. So when on the second day of the
festival I am sitting in the bar/lounge half of the venue and I hear a drummer
laying down some sweet jazz fills for soundcheck my brain immediately goes on
full alert and I start walking towards this mysterious noise that's not like
the others. I planted myself in front of
the bass player, a few feet from the stage, and waited. When the band laid into their first song, my
head exploded.
Unmothered are a
power trio that plays what they call (affectionately?) haunt rock. Haunt rock in my estimation is comprised of
1/3 sludge metal, 1/3 death metal, and 1/3 jazz/black metal/noise metal/stoner
rock. This melting pot of sound is
completely invigorating and one hundred percent intoxicating! Everything about their live performance
worked for me. The enormous riffs, the
menacing guitar and bass tones, the growled vocals, the musical intricacies within
each song, the thunderously dexterous drumming.
Look, I don't want to downplay the other two musicians contributions one
iota, but that was the single most impressive jazz-based heavy metal drumming
performance I have ever seen!
Now obviously, not everyone will have the opportunity to see
this band live. At least not
immediately. Have no fear however, because
that is where their self-titled EP comes into play. My fellow music fanatics, you can each get
your hands on a CD or vinyl copy of this EP and experience for yourselves the
unbridled power inherent in Unmothered's
work. All seven songs, from EP opener
"Gravitons" to EP finale "Trancendor", will fill your metal
loving heart with glee. You will also experience
an unquenchable desire for more when the EP ends. I'm afraid this desire can only be tempered
by hitting the play button to start the ride over again.
Waveriders, you need Unmothered
in your musical lives. If you won't take
my word for it perhaps you'll listen to Tim Wilson, bassist of the mighty Wo Fat, who was standing next to me for
most of Unmothered's performance
that fateful night. Seconds after Unmothered's set ended Tim turned to me
and said, "Well that was impressive".
Yes sir. Yes it was. You know what to do folks!
- Penfold
http://unmothered.bigcartel.com/
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