‘Terrible feeling pulls the rug beneath my feet, Retreat, recoil, I think I change my mind, Now you think of what you’ll leave behind’ (At Peace)

Mother Nature are back with a new 7-inch and follow-up to last year’s debut 12-inch, Living, Joyful And Free.  The Leeds band, who feature members of Perspex Flesh, The Flex and Mob Rules among others, are once again in rampaging form, bringing the stomp and the serpentine, the burly and the weird, to bear with equal relish.

Both tracks – At Peace and Language Of A Peaceful Mind – are brilliantly crafted.  Tensely claustrophobic and anxiously convulsing, they draw us remorselessly into their unsettling embrace.  The tautly angular guitar smoulders with a delicious off-kilter twang, while the rhythm section brings a rugged yet loping swagger to proceedings, not to mention some typically bruising bass lines.

Meanwhile, the guttural barked vocals are deftly intertwined throughout with ominously whispered spoken word.  This only adds to the air of insidious unease as Mother Nature explore themes of mortality, nurture, and finding a way to live amid the pain and uncertainty.  Donor Records, as always, do a bang-up job pulling it all together.