Austin four-piece mozworth return with ‘Why Not’, a single that’s heavier, more forceful and more outward-looking than much of their earlier work, setting the tone for forthcoming album The Mountain & The Wolf with the sound of a band clearly energised by change.
The arrival of drummer Mike Hall has altered the chemistry between Michael “Boz” Bosworth, Mark Heaps and Jack Schultz, and ‘Why Not’ captures the effect immediately. There’s a stronger sense of propulsion here, with the band sounding far more willing to let the song push against the edges of their established indie-rock identity.
Tracked live at 5th Street Studios, ‘Why Not’ carries the momentum of players locking into one another in real time. The guitars hit harder, the rhythm section has more room to drive, and the whole track benefits from a sense of scale that would have been difficult to reproduce in a smaller home-recording setup.
mozworth’s 90s alt-rock influence remains clear, though ‘Why Not’ is most effective when the band treats that lineage as a source of weight rather than anything to pick from. The song keeps the vulnerability of modern indie intact while giving it a much more muscular frame.
Previous singles ‘The Sky Is Falling’ and ‘Sandpiper’ hinted at where mozworth might be heading, but ‘Why Not’ sounds like they’ve finally arrived there.
If The Mountain & The Wolf follows this path, the band’s next record could be defined not by introspection alone, but by what happens when introspection finally erupts.