As a name, MammaBear suggests something protective and nurturing. An inviolable figure guided by love, duty, and familial piety. I’m not sure that’s what Kyle Gordon had in mind when he started the project nearly a decade ago, but monikers have a way of manifesting their own meaning. What we do know is that MammaBear has become something more than a musical endeavor for Gordon. It’s become his primary means of expression, a pseudo-identity to be, yes, protected and nurtured at whatever cost.
So when the pandemic forced Gordon to cancel a tour and threatened his raison d’être, it’s understanable that he would succumb temporarily to the perils of isolation. But rather than losing himself to pity and self-doubt, Gordon used the experience to stoke his creative fires. MammaBear’s fourth album, Free Radical, is the product of that metamorphic process. It also happens to be the project’s most explosive and ambitious work to date.
Originally recorded at Gordon’s home on an 8-track Tascam, there’s a looseness to the album that grants it a kind of propulsive vitality. It’s the sort of record that slams into your ears and rattles your bones. Its rousing riffs and sky-high hooks practically demand full volume immersion. And yet, despite its exhilarated rush, not everything here is fist bumps and fireworks. For all its pummeling, fuzz-laden thrust, opener “Wish I” channels pandemic unease and outlines a social media-obsessed society on the brink of collapse. The towering Oasis-like shimmer of “Easy Answers” may pulse with arena-ready fervor, but its unanswered pleas to reject isolation cast a dark shadow on the track.
Elsewhere, “Need Your Love” bounces and skulks while offering a sneering reprimand of empty materialism and transactional love. It’s perhaps the record’s most streamlined cut mixing seventies psychedelia with the Kinks’ early garage rock crunch. Gordon has always had a strong knack for marrying wild-eyed rawk rawness to tuneful melodies, and here that balance is at its sharpest and most poignant.
At this point, it’s worth mentioning that Gordon is responsible for nearly all the performances on Free Radical. Josh Longino (Disapyramids, Gringo Star) and Benjamin Davidow (The Buzzards of Fuzz, Gas Hound, Phantom Electric) provide keys and backup vocals throughout, but this is undeniably Gordon’s show. Oftentimes that singularity of vision can lead to a plodding atmosphere; fortunately, Free Radical never sounds bogged down. A rare exception to his one-man tour de force is the fiery “Do It Again,” a hard-charging track on which producer and engineer Kristofer Sampson (Ponderosa, the B-52s, the Coathangers) assumes lead guitar duties. Together the pair kick up a blistering squall, resulting in some of the album’s most satisfyingly unhinged moments.
Free Radical concludes with the wistful acoustic ballad “Life Can Wait.” On a record full of stormy catharsis and ardent release, it offers some needed tenderness and quiet yearning. If anything good came from COVID and the ensuing lockdowns, it’s that it allowed time for reflection and personal reckoning. For Gordon, this meant coming to terms with what was most important in his life. The answers—companionship, unconditional love, music, creative freedom—weren’t all that surprising. What was stunning was how quickly those things could disappear or be taken away. Free Radical is an acknowledgment of those fears and a repudiation of the forces that wedge us apart—loneliness, tribalism, social media addiction, celebrity worship, the list goes on. With MammaBear, Gordon has found his purpose, his community, and his means of escape. He’s going to fight like hell to keep it that way.
MammaBear will celebrate the release of Free Radical tonight at Boggs Social & Supply with Seagulls, Shehehe, and Killakee House. Doors open at 8 p.m. Admission is $10. 21+ to enter.
More Info
Web: mbearmusic.com
Bandcamp: mammabearmusic.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @mammabearmusic
Instagram: @mammabearmusic
Twitter: @mammabearmusic
YouTube: @MammaBearMusic