''Mama, I'm Swollen'' is the sixth
studio album by the American
indie rock
Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...
band
Cursive, on
Saddle Creek Records
Saddle Creek Records is an American record label based in Omaha, Nebraska. Started as a college class project on entrepreneurship, the label was founded by Mike Mogis and Justin Oberst in 1993 (as Lumberjack Records). Mogis soon turned over hi ...
. It was released on March 1, 2009 digitally, March 10 on CD, and was released on
LP on May 19, 2009. The entire album was played through as a preview at Subterranean in Chicago on June 27, 2008. On February 24, 2009 the band released "From the Hips" on their website.
Background
In December 2008, the band had finished recording and mixing their next album.
[
]
Release
In January 2009, the band went on a tour of the US.digipak
Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage.
Jewel case
...
and 180 gram red vinyl/CD gatefold package order will come with a bonus download card with other songs, demos, and videos. It was supported with a handful of releases shows across the country, with support from Ladyfinger and Little Brazil
Little Brazil is a four-piece rock band formed in 2002 in Omaha, Nebraska by Landon Hedges of Desaparecidos and formerly of The Good Life. Originally he intended to use the name Little Brazil for his solo work, yet he recruited his friends Dan ...
.Record Store Day
Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...
event, the band released a split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, entertai ...
with Ladyfinger, which featured Cursive's "From the Hips" and "Universal Shrug", while Ladyfinger contributed "Little Things" and "Old News". In April and May 2009, the band went on a US tour with Man Man
Man Man is an American experimental rock band from Philadelphia currently based in Los Angeles. Their multi-instrumental style is centered on the piano playing of lead singer, songwriter, and lyricist Honus (Ryan Kattner). Honus is accompanied ...
.[ They went on a tour of the UK to close out May 2009, before embarking on a US tour until July 2009. Further shows were added, extending the trek into August 2009. During this, a music video was released for "I Couldn't Love You". Kasher said it was a "gross exaggeration of the ']trophy wife
A trophy wife is a wife who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband. The term is often used in a derogatory or disparaging way, implying that the wife in question has little personal merit besides her physical attractiveness, requires sub ...
' concept -- grooms hunting down brides, hanging wedding pictures over the mantel next to a deer head". They went on a short tour of Japan in October 2009; they closed the year with a US tour in November and December 2009. Between February and April 2010, the band went on a US tour with Alkaline Trio
Alkaline Trio is an American punk rock band from Chicago, Illinois. Since 2001, the band has consisted of Matt Skiba (vocals, guitar), Dan Andriano (vocals, bass) and Derek Grant (drums, vocals).
Founded in late 1996 by Skiba, bassist Rob Do ...
, with support from the Dear & Departed
The Dear & Departed was an American rock band from Orange County and Los Angeles, California, founded by Dan Smith. Founded in 2006, the band went on the Vans Warped Tour and released their debut album ''Something Quite Peculiar'' that same year ...
.
Reception
Initial critical response to ''Mama, I'm Swollen'' ranged from mixed to positive reviews. At Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
score of 65, based on 14 reviews.
Track listing
Bonus Material Download Card
CD and LP versions of the album came with a Bonus Material Download Card to enable the customer to download five bonus tracks and 14 tour videos not included on the album by going to http://saddle-creek.com/mamaimswollen and entering the code found on the card. The code only works once.
Bonus Tracks
#"All I Know"
#"Mama's Baggage"
#"I Couldn't Love You (demo, alternate lyrics)"
#"What Have I Done (demo, extra verse, alternate lyrics)"
#"In the Now (demo, alternate lyrics)"
References
External links
Cursive official websiteSaddle Creek Records
2009 albums
Cursive (band) albums
Saddle Creek Records albums
Concept albums
{{2000s-indie-rock-album-stub