Mothers - It Hurts Until It Doesn't - 2015

Mothers’ debut single, “No Crying In Baseball,” is less of a confession than it is a concise, targeted purging. “I guess my tongue was softer then, but no one’s trying and I’m sick of it!” Kristine Leschper sings. “There’s no crying in baseball / Try and understand / Their chapped lips begging me over and over again.” She delivers this sermon in what some would call talk-singing, expelling her stream-of-consciousness lyrics with neither a smile nor a sneer, her voice builds and breaks down as she shouts “again.” When “No Crying In Baseball” was released, Leschper said that it was a song about being willfully vulnerable, about showing your offender where it hurts without resorting to hysterics, about realizing that weaknesses can be shouted and celebrated and owned without embarrassment. It’s crafted like an argument, albeit an internal one, and its declarative, abrasive, unrestrained delivery introduced us to Leschper’s powerful presence and the heart she wears on a tattered sleeve. stereo gum