May we all live long enough to savor our revenge. Since the release of their debut album a decade ago, indie-rock quartet Adult Mom has wholeheartedly grappled with pain, frustration, and disillusionment, all while offering koans to hopeful resilience. On Natural Causes, their fourth album, they embrace a new emotional register: rage that burns so bright you can light your way by it. Stevie Knipe, the group's principal songwriter and lead vocalist, wrote the songs on Natural Causes from 2020 to 2023 during a period of both global tumult and personal upheaval. The album arrives in the wake of Knipe undergoing intensive treatment for cancer in their late twenties, an experience that brought them into direct confrontation with their own mortality. As they started writing songs from that vantage, they found they could stare down difficult memories of abuse and toxic relationships with a new ferocity. "Feeling like you’re a prisoner in your own body to medical professionals makes you very sad, but also very angry. There were nights where I would have full tantrums. I felt like a 13-year-old just from the pure anger of it," says Knipe. "You revert to this childlike state of, This is not fair! It unlocks those other moments in your life when you were like, This is not fair." Though Knipe has been out as queer and non-binary since Adult Mom's debut, their relationship to their identity, like many queer artists', has evolved and revealed itself in long waves. They came out as a lesbian after writing Adult Mom's lauded 2021 album Driver, and many of the songs on Natural Causes cut through the knots of compulsory heterosexuality and coerced gender normativity. Getting more deeply in touch with your own queerness can feel liberating and thrilling; it can also thaw out oceans of anger you never knew you had from all the times you had to stay alienated from yourself to survive. "Thematically, I got more comfortable with getting darker," says Knipe. "I knew there were things I wanted to explore that I didn’t get to on Driver, like the traumatic side of trying to unravel all this learned straightness. There were things happening interpersonally where I was like, OK, now I need to really tackle the tough parts of this process."
Iggy Pop, Keanu Reeves, Flea, Debbie Harry, Jason Momoa, Henry Rollins, Juliette Lewis, and even Tom Cruise… These legends are all fans, and many have been spotted at The Bobby Lees shows. Their sound is raw, undeniable, and cuts through the bullshit of everyday life. Since forming in 2017 in Woodstock NY, the band has released three hard-hitting albums including 2020’s SKIN SUIT and 2022’s Bellevue. Committed to deepening and expanding their songwriting, each release sounds more honest, interesting, and bigger than before, having worked with producers David Sardy, Jon Spencer of the Blues Explosion, Alex Pasco, and Vance Powell. Led by singer and guitarist Sam Quartin, drummer Macky Bowman and bassist Kendall Wind, The Bobby Lees are a live act that is second to none. Henry Rollins of Black Flag said “The Bobby Lees are wild and different. Dangerous music is good for you.” Mick Freely said “Something happens at their shows… A kind of black magic, A curious force of nature… A sacred experience that is desperately needed by humanity in these trying times we live in. Experience it for yourself.”