Album Review MOURN – Self Worth

“It’s all a mess”, co-vocalists and long-time best friends Carla Pérez Vas and Jazz Rodríguez Bueno brashly declare at the start of ‘It’s A Frog’s World’. “There’s a problem,” they spit, before launching into an unrelenting instrumental barrage of messy guitars and ferocious drums. It fiercely reinforces the exasperated tone of ‘Self Worth’, one set early by ‘This Feeling Is Disgusting’ repeated cry; “it sucks”.

Fully embracing the rapid punk that reared its head more gently on 2018’s ‘Sorpresa Familia’, Barcelona-based MOURN emerge from well-documented label troubles, the departure of former drummer Antonio Postius, and a global pandemic with a raw, resigned rage. Outwardly tackling their fear of men, living with daily anxiety, financial woes and so much more, their fourth studio album simultaneously searches for hope as it candidly condemns their surroundings.

‘Self Worth’ looks to find just that, violently expelling all that is wrong to settle on inner peace. That anger is palpable, from the jarring opening of ‘Stay There’ to the minimalist bass and accompanying cries of ‘Apathy’. A respite of sorts arrives in the form of ‘House Hold’, yet its comparably subdued melody still provides the backdrop to MOURN’s visceral wails. Because learning from the world around them, MOURN have embraced the uncontrollable chaos in order to find their own relief, as messy as that may be.