IN REVIEW: Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers - "Bought to Rot"

Designed to play out like a mixtape, Laura Jane Grace's debut album with backing band The Devouring Mothers is sonically restless to say the least; its fourteen songs rarely sound alike, with this familiar group of musicians (The Devouring Mothers are drummer Atom Willard, also of Against Me!, and recent AM! producer Marc Jacob Hudson) gleefully crate digging for inspiration and coming up with a host of influences.

Naturally, a primary touchstone is Against Me!, with which Grace has been ringleader for twenty years or so now. That said, there is less of the tension and anguish present here, and Laura sounds liberated without the association to AM! and the expectations that come with every new record by the well established band. Bought to Rot, without any real precedent set, is loose, free flowing, often funny and always fun.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on mid-album highlight I Hate Chicago, during which pretty much every Chicagoan institution is railed against as scapegoats for divorce, since the song's narrator is revisiting memories shared with someone who's no longer in her life. It reads like heavy stuff, but it's a blast to listen to. Elsewhere, there are riffs on hotel rooms (across multiple songs), lighthearted odes to friendship, a loving serenade to Grace's daughter, and all of it is quick and easy to listen to.

That said, Bought to Rot can sometimes seem scattershot (like mixtapes usually are), and I can't help but wonder what it may have sounded like were it afforded a little more cohesion (even if that would dull the free spirit of the album). Still, even in this somewhat more tossed together fashion, Laura Jane Grace packs in another batch of quality tunes and proves her formidable worth as a songwriter yet again.

November 9, 2018 • Bloodshot
Highlights Born in Black • Apocalypse Now (& Later) • I Hate Chicago