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Mar 13, 2025 By Issa Nasatir Photography by Sean Madden

Four-piece indie rock band Adult Mom have announced their first album in four years, Natural Causes. The announcement is supported by a new single, “Crystal,” the second behind “Door Is Your Hand,” released last month. Natural Causes is due out May 9 on Epitaph. Listen to both singles and see the album’s tracklist and cover art below.

Natural Causes was written between 2020 and 2023. The press release says that Adult Mom channeled the global turmoil that accompanied those years into “rage that burns so bright you can light your way by it.”

“Crystal” begins folk-influenced and jangly, crescendoing into its climax introducing loud drums and distorted guitar. Lyrically, it laments feeling stuck in an uncommunicative relationship, fantasizing about any way to get out.

Lead vocalist and songwriter Stevie Knipe, who identifies as queer and non-binary, had this to say about the song in the press release: “‘Crystal’ is written from the perspective of feeling trapped while still being seen in a distorted way. It’s about knowing yourself but not being ready to face it. Thematically, I got more comfortable with getting darker. I knew there were things I wanted to explore that I didn’t get to on Driver, like the traumatic side of trying to unravel all this learned straightness. There were things happening interpersonally where I was like, ‘OK, now I need to really tackle the tough parts of this process.’”

The album follows 2021’s Driver and was recorded at Artfarm Recording studio in New York’s Hudson Valley. Compared to Knipe’s usual process, they describe the undertaking of Natural Causes as a “very communist practice of making a record. It was the whole band and our engineer Chance [Milestone], and we were all making choices as a unit. Every guitar tone, every sound that you hear was all decided together. We’re all the collective producer. I’ve never made a record like that before.”

Natural Causes Tracklist:

1. Door Is Your Hand
2. 21
3. Benadryl
4. Crystal
5. Burned Off
6. Matinee
7. You In June
8. How About Now
9. Headline

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