MOURN’s debut LP gave fans and listeners an interesting idea: Catalonian teenage wunderkinds making authentically great guitar-based music in an era where it’s considered almost unfashionable. Since that period, the band has faced some very real issues, both personally and professionally, things that 17-to-20 year olds normally don’t have to worry about. When dealing with such a youthful band, you worry about how they will live up to the early attention as it begins to dissipate. Upon hearing Ha, He, He. for the first time, it turns out, we never needed to look forward to MOURN growing into a great band; they already are one.

Ha, Ha, He. has all the twists and turns of Post-Rock from its Chicago heyday bolstered by the melodic quirkiness of a new influence for the band, Throwing Muses. On “Brother, Brother” and “Howard,” we see MOURN through a pop lens: undeniably catchy, but intricately performed and still somehow “heavy.”

“Irrational Friend” takes its chorus, “Ha. Ha. He!” from William Blake’s “The Laughing Song,” a poem from his Songs of Innocence and Experience. Much like the poem itself, the song is sort of a last gasp of screaming laughter on an album that’s marked in real time. You can sense the band working through their experiences as a group of young and talented people entering their 20s. They face a future that can be equally rewarding and cruel, with respect to their career in music as well as life in general.

MOURN – Ha, Ha, He.
(Captured Tracks – June 3, 2016)

TRACKLIST:
1. Flee
2. Evil Dead
3. Brother Brother
4. Howard
5. The Unexpected
6.Storyteller
7. Gertrudis Get Through This
8. President Bullshit
9. I Am a Chicken
10. Second Sage
11. Irrational Friend
12. Fry Me