Review & Track Premiere: Mouth, Getaway
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on June 7th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream Mouth’s ‘On the Boat.’ Their new album, Getaway, is out Friday on This Charming Man Records. Preorders are available here: https://thischarmingmanrecords.de/produkt/mouth-getaway-col-lp/]
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A bit of drift to start and soon enough, “Getaway” is gone. The organ is the tell. Movement, in movements. Soon, German trio Mouth are fully immersed in the classic prog boogie of the title-track to their fourth full-length. Getaway is comprised of six tracks and totals 44 minutes, 22 of which are dedicated to “Getaway” — all of side A — which serves as opener and longest cut (immediate points) as well as the beginning of the narrative that plays out across the total span. To put it to scale, the next longest piece on side B is “Asylum/Sea” at 5:59, so it’s a significant jump in methodology from one half of the record to the other, but the Cologne-based Mouth have been at this a while now, and though bassist Thomas Johnen (also some guitar) makes his first studio-LP appearance here alongside guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Christian Koller and drummer/keyboardist Nick Mavridis, he’s actually been in the band since 2019, taking the place of Gerald Kirsch, who remains credited with at least some of the low end on the album.
Either way, Mouth know what they’re doing. Self-produced by the band and mixed by Mavridis and Johnen (Eroc at Mastering Ranch mastered), Getaway follows five years after Mouth‘s last full-length, 2018’s Floating (review here), although they did release the Past Present Future (review here) compilation in 2019 and reissue their 2009 debut, Rhizome, in 2020. Still, as Floating arrived just a year after 2017’s Vortex (review here), the five-year stretch between LPs is notable, but readily explained between the lineup change and global catastrophe.
One might also wonder over just how long a period Getaway was recorded and, particularly in the case of its title-track — an obvious focal point since it takes up half the record and shares its name — how it was built up to flow as smoothly as it does, working through classic prog boogie into psych rock and coming out clean on the other side with a smoothly punctuated verse 16 minutes in, organ and acoustic and electric guitar all intertwining behind storytelling that, whether it’s ’70s or ’90s-inspired is anyone’s guess, but that feels natural when the solo starts and wouldn’t have been out of place 10 years ago on Elektrohasch; yes, I’m thinking of Hypnos 69.
The hidden message of “Getaway” — which blows itself out vocally on the repeated line “We dance in the underground” (please note: we do not all dance) before gradually hypnotizing around various melodies, some Mellotron floating in, light vocals, and so on, in its last three minutes — is one of plot. That solo (it begins at 17:37) is only a few measures long before the distorted vocals take over, but it underscores the point that even so far into such a willfully expansive piece they’d still hold firm to their intention. Part of the ending feels improvised, from about 19:15 through 20:15, but the keyboard and quiet vocals, organ, et al, that pick up from there to finish are both a welcome build and a mapped-out course. Mouth are not lacking structure really in any of Getaway, and even in letting go, the title-track stands as a clear demonstration of what they can do within the given sprawl of their sound.
Platter flip and “On the Boat” (premiering above) leads off side B and rocks harder around a comparatively straightforward central groove and hook, the vocals picking up with the farther-back-and-distorted; think “Cat’s foot, iron claw/Neurosurgeon screams for more” à la King Crimson, but with a heavy push from the drums and an insistent progression of organ, guitar and bass to coincide, twisting into the falsetto chorus, looping back through toward a solo and final chorus to end, transitioning smoothly to the instrumental “Asylum/Sea.”
So, quickly momentum takes a different form on side B, and there’s a narrative to Getaway that’s apparent just from the names of the songs — “Getaway” on side A, while side B is “On the Boat,” “Asylum/Sea,” “Purge and Hunt,” “Once” and “Drowning” — and if Mouth are writing about Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis, fair enough for their not forcing a happy ending where one doesn’t always go. “Asylum/Sea” finds its melodic stretchout in the Mellotron, and Mavridis‘ snare is tight and cuts through, but not so much as to disturb the quiet of the waves that surround it, where “Purge and Hunt” is more urgent in its organ-rock shove and more purposefully brash in its crashes and lead twists of guitar initially.
A break after about 2:40 into the total 5:41 marks the launch point for an exploratory part that’s mellower and seems to have some Rhodes or other kind of vintage-sounding keys worked in around sustained guitar drone and jazzy drums, but it’s the organ line that holds past the finish and that lets the funky “Once” pick up from there with its short but atmospheric bounce. It might be garage rock but for all the keyboards, but you’d never know it with the finer detailing that surrounds, and that keeps it consistent with the material prior, be it “Purge and Hunt” or “Getaway” itself.
The layers of keys, gentle melodicism and drumless rhythm of “Drowning” lend it something of an epilogue feel, but if that’s how the story ends — i.e. with the depicted refugees drowning — then it is an essential facet of the story itself. There are no lyrics, so they leave it at least somewhat open to interpretation, but as with “Asylum/Sea” finding a calm moment between the excitement of “On the Boat” and “Purge and Hunt,” Mouth imbue “Drowning” with a sense of melancholy for its sub-three-minutes that rises from silence, establishes its layers of organ/synth, holds its dirge, and drops to silence as if to leave you asking what happens next.
Ideally we all give money to Greenpeace and like-minded organizations, but either way, that the story being depicted throughout aligns naturally with what the instruments and lyrics are doing is another level of showcase through which Getaway feels so well considered. It is not overwrought or too thought out, not flat or lacking passion, but there’s a thread woven through the songs that brings them together, an energy in the listening, that makes the entire procession feel carefully sculpted, even in its off-the-cuff moments. This may be business as usual for Mouth on paper, but in hearing the album, their sense of guiding the audience through the songs — instrumentally and in terms of the narrative — is palpable, and whether they’re psyched-out, dug-in or just plain ol’ heavy rocking, they remain sure in what they want to do. The results are all the more satisfying for that.
Mouth, Getaway (2023)
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