Cold Beat - Mother (LP)

Cold Beat’s Mother lands with the cool confidence of a band that knows exactly where its neon-lit heart beats. The project led by Hannah Lew, formerly of San Francisco trio Grass Widow, leans fully into gleaming synth pop here, but keeps the taut poise and melodic economy that made her earlier work so magnetic. Released in 2020 through DFA Records, Mother plays like a night drive across a city you think you know, only to find new streets sparking to life under sodium lights.

What hits first is the clarity. The drum programming is crisp, the bass lines glide and purr, and Lew’s voice sits like frost on glass, calm but cutting. It nods to classic New Order and OMD without falling into retro cosplay. There is a modern shine to the production that suits the writing. Choruses bloom rather than burst, and the hooks feel etched, not inflated. If you have been following Cold Beat from the more guitar-forward early records, the shift makes perfect sense. The pulse has always been there, now the synthesisers carry it with a clean, luminous weight.

The record is sequenced with care. The opener sketches a horizon line with patient arpeggios, then the tempo lifts and never loses its footing. Mid-album, there is a sweet spot where bass, snare and a glassy lead meet in a little pocket of euphoria. It is not ravey, more like a steady lift of colour. The closer pulls the blinds and lets the room cool, the kind of ending that makes you flip the record and start again. Nothing overstays its welcome. You can feel the editor’s hand in the way verses glide into choruses and slip back out with a graceful turn.

Lew’s writing keeps returning to the tension between intimacy and distance, human warmth against a backdrop of circuitry. It suits her voice, which holds steady even when the lyrics carry a quiet ache. You get lines that stare at the world’s tangle, then step sideways to make space for release. That balance is why Mother holds up to repeat plays. It is a sleek listen, sure, but it also has spine and thought, a humane streak running right through its shine.

Spin the Mother vinyl and the bottom end swells just a touch more, the hi-hats tick with nice air, and the synth pads bloom with that faint halo only wax gives you. It is the kind of album that rewards a proper listen, not background noise while you do the dishes. Dim the lights, let it loop, and you notice small choices, a held note here, a tucked-away harmony there. If you are hunting Cold Beat vinyl, this is a worthy centrepiece, the one that tells you exactly what the band is about in 2020 and why the DFA partnership fits.

Production-wise, the palette is disciplined. No overstuffed stacks, no showy solos. Just a sharp sense of arrangement and a bass that walks with elegant purpose. The melodies feel drawn with a ruler, then smudged with a thumb at the edges so they glow. That restraint is a gift. Plenty of synth-pop albums chase size and end up losing shape. Mother keeps its shoulders back and lets motion do the work.

For anyone who digs clean-lined electronics with a beating heart, this sits nicely alongside contemporary synth outfits, but it also slots into a shelf of classics with ease. It is a record-store recommendation waiting to happen, the sort of thing you put on for a mate and watch them ask for the sleeve halfway through side A. If you like to buy Cold Beat records online, keep an eye out, since the title tends to disappear fast when restocked. Fans who collect Cold Beat albums on vinyl will appreciate how cohesive this one feels, from artwork to pacing.

In Australia, it has that after-hours quality that suits a tram ride through winter rain, city lights fraying across the Yarra. If your local Melbourne record store has a copy, grab it. If not, most shops that specialise in vinyl records Australia wide should be able to order it in. Either way, Mother belongs on a turntable. It is a confident, luminous statement from a band that has quietly levelled up, and it keeps giving back every time the needle drops.