F.O. Machete – Mother of a Thousand

I’m going to play my honesty card here and admit I missed F.O. Machete first time around. I don’t remember where my head was in 2004 but F.O. Machete were releasing their debut album, My First Machete and selling out headline tours. They followed that up with Blaze of Flashes in 2006. The band. Natasha Noramly (bass, vocals) and Paul Mellon (guitar, vocals), were on fire releasing EP’s and singles up until 2011’s My Last Machete EP.

At that point the band went on hiatus when Noramly and her Scottish husband relocated across the Atlantic to New York. It wasn’t until the pandemic hit in 2020 that they returned to Glasgow. Scottish label Last Night From Glasgow reached out to the band, initially about releasing their back catalogue. The band had already started rehearsing new material which delighted the label and so a new album was planned.

Their long-awaited comeback album, Mother of a Thousand, was recorded at the famous Chem19 Studios with renowned producer Paul Savage (The Delgado’s, Mogwai, The Twilight Sad). The band had this to say on the background to the album.

Let’s chuck this on the turntable and see what we have.

Straight out the gate it’s the fuzzed-out opus ‘Confetti Crown’. It unfurls like a slow-motion explosion—glittering shards of gritty guitar, propulsive bass, and a vocal melody that hangs in the air like a question you don’t quite know how to answer. I love how the drums and bass both explode at the same times. Most satisfying. As openers go its assured and sets their stall out early doors. This is gonna be special.

With a churning rhythm section and a riff that sounds like it’s constantly trying to outrun itself, ‘Bicycle Spokes’ is kinetic and restless. The vocals cut through the haze like headlights on a foggy night, delivering lines about movement—both literal and metaphorical. Lines like “You get so much pleasure from architecture” and “Even corrugated iron had so much texture” make you smile to yourself whilst soaking up the amazing melody.

This is where the tension tightens. ‘The Most Dangerous Thing You Own’ is brooding and ominous, built around angular guitar lines and lyrics that feel like whispered warnings. There’s an underlying menace here, a sense that something is lurking just out of view. The chorus explodes in a burst of frustration and catharsis, but the unease lingers long after the song fades. If you’re like me you’ll be marching about shouting “Select select delete” at anyone who’ll listen after listening to this one.

Clocking in at just under three minutes, ‘Jettison’ is a quick, potent gut punch of a track. The band strips things down to the essentials—razor-sharp drums, a driving bassline, and vocals that teeter between urgency and exhaustion. It’s over almost as soon as it begins, leaving behind a sense of breathless exhilaration. 

At the halfway point the band really flexes their melodic muscles. A shimmering, slightly off-kilter guitar line opens ‘Skeletor’, giving way to a soaring chorus that feels both anthemic and melancholic. It’s moody and never at rest, ever evolving through its run time. That incendiary outro section is going to set off a lot of mosh pits. Guitars slowly fizz and pop before erupting into a glorious wall of sound.   

Side two kicks off with ‘Kicking Up Dust’ showing off both the band’s noisier tendencies as well as their gift for hooky melodies. Verses float along on a bass line that could’ve been culled from a lost Cocteau Twins track before layers of fuzzed-out guitars crash against screamed vocals. It’s a song that feels unstoppable, relentless, and (in the best way possible) slightly unhinged. 

If there’s a moment of pure, unfiltered nostalgia on Mother of a Thousand, this is it. ‘Kids Of The Summer’ is drenched in golden-hour melancholy, painting vivid images of endless nights and reckless abandon. The guitars shimmer, the vocals ache, and for a few minutes, it feels like time itself slows down. 

Next up is ‘Hello Obscurity’. The title alone hints at the themes of fading into the background, of embracing the shadows rather than fighting to be seen. Musically, it’s a slow-burner, with a steady build pulsing along an insistent bassline. There’s something deeply cathartic about the way it unravels— you can almost sense a weight being lifted, only to come crashing back down. 

Softening the edges, ‘Milk’ is as close to a ballad as you’re going to get from F.O. Machete. It’s a sweeping hug of a song that has complimenting vocal and guitar melodies. Drums and bass remaining understated and letting the song blossom on top of them. There’s a tangible warmth on show that speaks volumes to the listener about how much this band cares.

The album closes on a note of existential frustration with ‘The Enhance Button Is Not Working’. The title alone suggests a sense of disillusionment, and the music follows suit—starting slow and sombre before building into a cacophony of sound. By the time the final notes ring out, there’s no neat resolution, no easy answers. Just a lingering sense of something unfinished, something left unsaid. 

Mother of a Thousand is a spiralling, soaring, and sometimes scathing expedition through shimmering melodies and jagged edges, filled with both nostalgic longing and the sharp bite of modern anxiety. Across ten tracks, the band deftly balances introspective lyricism with unrelenting sonic force, pulling the listener into a world that feels at once deeply personal and universally relatable.

It’s also an album that thrives on tension—the push and pull between melody and dissonance, nostalgia and unease, movement and stagnation. F.O. Machete has crafted a record that feels like a living, breathing thing, constantly shifting and evolving with each listen. There are no passive moments here. Every track demands engagement, whether through the visceral energy of ‘Jettison’, the aching beauty of Milk’, or the unresolved chaos of ‘The Enhance Button Is Not Working’. This is music that doesn’t just ask you to listen—it pulls you into its world, urging you to feel every note, every lyric, every distorted chord. 

Mother of a Thousand a bold, uncompromising statement—one that lingers in your mind long after the final track fades. Whether, like me, this is your first introduction to the band or you’ve been with them since the beginning, one thing is certain: this is an album that refuses to be ignored. 

Mother of a Thousand is out now on Vinyl and CD via Last Night From Glasgow.

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Photo Credits

Gary Sloan

Marisa Privitera