Rust

Mother Goose have always sounded like a band who took the scenic route to the studio and forgot why they were travelling in the first place.

Built on old amplifiers, loose rhythms and the dangerous belief that a guitar solo should be allowed to find its own way home, the group arrived carrying the spirit of seventies blues-rock without turning it into fancy dress. Their music breathes. Sometimes it also wanders into the kitchen and returns twenty minutes later holding a spoon.

Rust opens with a laid-back, gently tripping guitar figure that seems to bend the room around it. It does not kick the door down. It leaves the door open, lets the weather in and waits for you to notice that something has changed. From there, the record moves through hazy blues, warm organ, unhurried drums and vocals that sound suspended between acceptance and one final attempt to understand what went wrong.

The title track is not merely about getting older. It is about what happens when something once solid is left unattended: a relationship, a dream, a band, perhaps the hinge on the MERINGUE! office toilet. Rust is slow damage. By the time you can see it, the work has already been done.

Across songs such as “Return,” “Déjà Vu,” “Loose Change,” “Iron,” “Roots,” “Used to Be the View” and “Paper Skies,” Mother Goose explore memory, repetition and the quiet embarrassment of realising that the past has continued without asking permission. The playing is patient, soulful and gloriously uninterested in showing off.

We asked the band whether Rust represented a new beginning.

They said it represented “continued deterioration.”

At last: an artist with a realistic five-year plan.

Richard listened twice and now claims the spare room has “a different energy.” We have advised him to open a window.