Mom and Dad’s brand of art punk has typically resided within the harder, heavier, fuzzier realms of Nashville’s garage rock and punk scene. As a group, they’ve been largely content to hone their skills as a noisy rendition of the quintessential DIY basement rock band. With all this in mind, I am, Therefore I is, is the group’s most accessible work yet. The album consists mostly of simple, pop oriented tunes that glide through the ears with an ease usually reserved for indie pop. The band describes their latest release as a “a very tender record” and indeed it blows over the listener like a sudden refreshing breeze on a humid summer day. There’s a certain sentimentality that makes itself evident on tracks like “Winchester, TN” an acoustic narrative about a rural Tennessee location close to the group’s heart. If the new album represents anything in Mom and Dad’s career arch, it proves just how capable the band is of making intimate music that emotionally resonates with listeners.
-Andrew Strader