Hailing from Cork, self‑described bubblegrunge five‑piece Other Mother are ready to tear open the human condition, mental health, and the serrated edges of female rage on their new EP Can’t Help But Feel Dramatic.
Across the EP, the intensity is unmistakable. Willow Esteve’s vocals hover in that charged space between unbothered and furious. On ‘Fish to Fry’, she completely lets go. There’s something siren‑like in the way she delivers those lines, as though she’s trying to haunt you through your headphones.
‘Tension’, a previously unreleased track, carries much of that same intensity. Its ending in particular feels reminiscent of an earlier Cliffords sound: beautifully soft on the surface, but with the distinct sense that something is lurking just around the corner, ready to catch you off guard. It’s this tension between softness and volatility that makes Other Mother’s sound so compelling.
Other Mother’s sonic palette is built on a guitar‑driven foundation, but it’s the synths and electronic textures that give their music its distinctive emotional dimension. Rather than simply adding atmosphere, they become part of the EP’s emotional architecture, pushing the songs somewhere stranger and more unpredictable.
Other Mother are carving out a distinctive space within Ireland’s current wave of genre-blurring rock, and Can’t Help But Feel Dramatic feels like another step towards defining exactly what that space looks like. Dark, flourishing, danceable and charged with unapologetic feminine volatility, the EP embraces the drama rather than shying away from it.
CAN'T HELP BUT FEEL DRAMATIC OUT NOW.
Words by
Marie Müller, 2026.