Virgin Mother is the project of Seb Alvarez, who also leads the Chicago mathcore band meth., and he's gearing up to release three different EPs and one LP this year, each a collaboration with different artists and each a different style of music. The first is Marrow, which Seb made with Nic Kuczynski of Frail Body on bass and Jon Karel of The Number 12 Looks Like You and The Sawtooth Grin on drums, and Seb says this is the heaviest of the four releases. That's not hard to believe, as these three songs find him and his collaborators offering up a mathcore/noisecore fusion that unleashes a total assault on the eardrums. Each track is under two minutes, which is all they need to leave an immediate and lasting impact. Seb says:
Marrow is the first of three EPs and one LP that I plan to release over the course of the next few months. Each EP has entirely different personnel and branches off into different genres between each release. The entire project, titled Mourning Ritual, has taken me around five years to complete. Each release is reflective of different phases of my life, a topic I found extremely challenging to dive into as a writer. While I have written about personal experiences occasionally in past bands, this is the first time I really attempted to dissect myself. Topics range from my childhood to issues with addiction to mental health to whatever the fuck was drowning me at the time of writing.
Marrow is by far the heaviest of the four releases and features Nic Kuczynski of Frail Body on bass and Jon Karel of The Number 12 Looks Like You and The Sawtooth Grin on drums. Nic and I have been friends for a long time and we’ve wanted to work together in some capacity forever. Working with Jon was a dream come true for me as he was a major influence when I began drumming as a kid. For me, this is sort of a callback to the first meth record, The Children Are Watching, as it follows a similar formula of being as abrasive as possible in under 5 minutes.
I am beyond excited and petrified as fuck to begin releasing this project.