Love In a Vicious Way, the reflective debut album from Toronto’s Mother Tongues, is a carefully crafted cyber-psych opus that lurks between the cerebral and feral. Interlacing elements of shoegaze, psych rock, trip hop and dream pop, their sound is at moments precious and serene; in a blink, snarling, teeth razor-sharp. Its 10 songs about love, longing, desire, and identity are charged with a sincerity and sentimentalism that captures a time when everything was crucial and felt tenfold. Love In A Vicious Way sees the band carving out a space for themselves: they are world-building. Like some rare bird mimicking the machines at the edge of the forest, the album echoes the beauty, darkness, and weight of life in these ever-changing times.
