Record Review: Mommy's Cigarettes – Please Clap

The punk trio Mommy’s Cigarettes kicks off their three-song EP Please Clap with “Up The Poor,” a song that encapsulates their ability to veer from striking and serious to lighthearted and fun. The song begins with the line “Less is more, stay pure, stay poor” over a seething riff, and it ends with a spoof of a CCR song that references the “mark it zero” scene in “The Big Lebowski.” Whether they’re singing about class structure, metal scenes or drug use, they use snarky satire that makes a couple points and then jumps into the deep end, cannonballing into reservoirs of randomness. There’s always meaning embedded in the songs on Please Clap, but they’re not mundanely serious, instead they’re compelling and unpredictable.