Natural Causes is the blazing new outing from indie rock band Adult Mom, and is bursting with red-hot rage. The album sees lead singer and primary songwriter Stevie Knipe’s journey through chemotherapy treatment and the reopening of old wounds that never healed quite right. With screaming guitars and gritty, raw vocal performances, this project bounces from alt-folk to pop punk and is a powerful retelling of Knipe’s experiences through a queer lens.
The album opens with drums alone, put through a phaser and low pass filter, that sweeps open to reveal the bright, electric guitar-driven “Door Is Your Hand.” The instrumental feels light and sunny, until the first few lines are sung, “Picturing that you were dead / Is the only way to cope with my head.” Violent and angry lyrics grace the entire album, both directed externally and internally. On “Burned Off,” Knipe opens the song with a recount of a phone call to a suicide hotline, and bursts into an anthemic chorus of self loathing, “And If I threw a lighted match / Atop this mountain of filth and mess / I dont think I’d miss what burned off.” What stays consistent beneath these searing hot lyrics is how bright and happy the instrumentals feel. It’s a stark contrast that makes the listener sit up and pay attention.
Knipe’s delivery is captivating, and their stories are painfully honest. They discuss their first experience with cancer treatment on the acoustic ballad “Benadryl,” joking about how dreary the doctor’s office looks and the clumps of hair falling out. This dark humor makes the pain cut through even more deeply, and the recording style, featuring just guitar and vocals, makes the listener feel as though they’re in the room. Knipe even finds moments of spite on “How About Now:” “You always wanted me dead / Well, how about now / I guess I’m getting pretty close / If I refuse the treatment, it’ll spread out to my bones.” They even talk about how their past suicidal thoughts are almost coming true, and how it forces them to grapple with their own mortality.
The band experiments with a variety of sounds throughout the album. Most tracks are traditional vocal, guitar, bass, and drums, but they bend into different genres. On “Crystal,” the arrangement includes banjos, mandolins, and a fiddle, and ends with chaotic, distorted guitars, landing somewhere around folk-rock. “Matinee” is a piano-driven midtempo piece with strings, the instrumental arrangement following the lyrical metaphor of a matinee play used to describe a performative friend. Closing track “Headline” borders on country, with low, twangy, electric guitar lines. The band maintains a consistent thread of their signature indie rock sound throughout each track, making such a diverse project feel extremely cohesive.
Knipe’s vulnerability is so vivid and intense that the listener can’t help but look away from the lyrical pictures they paint. They approach their memories of being treated poorly through a new lens after processing the unfairness of their cancer diagnosis, allowing them to dig deeper and be lyrically ruthless, all underscored by solid indie rock instrumentals. This project is big, powerful, and hits hard and heavy through all nine tracks.
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