Another infectious rocker from Nashville-based band The Criticals, “Mother of Style” contemplates on the bittersweet evolution of their beloved locale. “The last half decade and all the city’s changes have been nothing short of bittersweet and exciting,” says Parker Forbes. “Caught in the eye of a nostalgia wave I had been riding for a few weeks while beginning writing the album, I so often thought of friends, bands, houses that everyone used to party in, and stories upon stories that we all shared for that short lived time in Nashville together. It was a really special and locomotive time.”
References to “a list of memories,” and the state of house parties play like a love letter to Nashville’s music scene, and a sense of community in general — even if there’s a sense of it fading. The “haunt me like a ghost,” Strokes-esque hook compels with the guitar pulses and escalated vocal pitch around 01:40, following into blaringly melodic guitar pulses thereafter. “Will you haunt me like a ghost…” signals a replay-inducing yearning, into the soaring “too long,” vocal punctuation. “Mother of Style” is a rousing overall success.
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This and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
