Mother Tongue - The Office Life EP

Mother Tongue

The Office Life EP
self-released; 2015

3.4 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

Hailing from Newtown, CT Mother Tongue is a three-piece band comprised of Jeff Schmidt (vocals/bass), Chris Cech (guitar) and Ben Stokes (drums). They recently released an EP entitled The Office Life, which is a solid dose of indie rock. My first thought was these guys sound a lot like Cloud Nothings, my second thought was the guys sound like early Pavement.

My comparison to Cloud Nothings comes from mainly the first song “Easy Come Easy Go.” The style is unequivocally similar but nonetheless Mother Tongue still displays a lot of talent. “Easy Come Easy Go” has an undeniable energy and is also quite catchy in a number of ways.

“Office Life” is where the Pavement vibe comes in. Schmidt sounds like Stephen Malkmus with his inflection and delivery on this song. The band’s most original sounding song is “Hangin’ Around.” It’s fairly well written but also doesn’t quite define the band's style. They close with “The City” which contains a bit of a bluesy vibe during the verse and rocks out pretty hard towards the end.

Mother Tongue formed in February and released this EP in July. It’s really no wonder that they seem to be wearing their influences on their sleeves at this point. The essence of a band to emerge takes time and Mother Tongue is a prime example of a bunch of talented musicians in the embryonic stage that are feeling their way through. There is nothing wrong with that and I have to say I was impressed with what they pulled off in such a short amount of time. 

The thing is some bands come out of this stage to find their sound and others well just can’t seem to find it. At this point it's just too early to know what these guys are capable of. For right now we can safely put them into a category of “wait and see” but if I was a betting man I would count on the former. 

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