Courtesy of Portugal. The Man.

In the wide world of music, change can spell the end of a band ‰ÛÒ or, in some rare cases, change gives that band an identity all its own. In most cases bands fall into a groove and alter their albums around it as they go. But out there in the endless expanse of MP3s there‰’s a few bands that buck that trend and create their consistency around drastic change. Two bands commit to change like nearly no other: Portugal. The Man and Mother Mother.

Both bands manage to make it by flipping their sounds around but always rotating about a steady core. These bands gingerly take massive steps onto new ground and see if they can‰’t break into it. Unlike other acts it‰’s not about figuring out a floor plan and shacking up in novel lands. Rather, it‰’s figuring out how travels across new genres can work in tandem with the band‰’s core identity. Despite so many shifts Portugal and Mother Mother remain familiar.

Mother Mother molded their core from sibling harmonies spun out in dialogues discussing the human condition. The Vancouver based band formed up when front man Ryan Guldemond roomed with his sister Molly and pulled her and later his other sibling Jasmin into forming Mother Mother.

The Canadian rockers stay eclectic but true to a form that uses accessible but interesting rhythms to showcase the soaring harmonies of the three siblings. Their newest album, Very Good Bad Thing, writhes with wrath, spitting caustic self-criticism across crashing synthesizers. The titular track bursts with contradictions, self-serious lines like “love is just a good bad joke.‰” The whole album jauntily seesaws between hard and soft, each track telling its own story.

Very Good Bad Thing contrasts the twangy strings of Sticks, their second most recent album, which stitches together a concept of falling away from society‰’s modern complexities. Both albums seem like they come from the same band strung apart alternate universes but the siblings’ harmonies remain the focal point. As Ryan theatrically expounds on abandoning modernity, his sisters bolster the words by matching them in ethereal tones.

Mother Mother still scrawls their signature across every track. They create a core around dramatic vocal stylings and a rhythm that completely supports dynamic harmonies. Every album just rotates around the core. Touch Up features a strange sort of Hillbilly pop rock full of jaunty, short tunes. O My Heart keeps some of the frenetic energy but turns more toward mainstream rock styles and Eureka shifts entirely to a perfectly-composed pop-rock style. So even though across so many albums Mother Mother never sounds the same, they still feel familiar.

Portugal. The Man work the same way, twisting around a core that brings familiarity to their constant tonal shifts. Portugal have indulged in so many beautifully odd divergences that it is no easy task to strap them all down in ink.

Their first studio album Waiter! You Vultures seethes with fury that sometimes chaotically simmers like at the end of “Guns.Guns…Guns‰” or explodes with rapturous rage in “Chicago.‰” After Waiter! came Church Mouth, a prog rock-esque epic album that rattled along rapid rhythms until exploding into sweeping choruses. Portugal‰’s newest album Evil Friends embraces modern rock fully, and comes chock full of heavy hitting hooks. Nothing in the band‰’s lively library lives up to the twenty-three minute song “It‰’s Complicated Being a Wizard.‰” John Gourley, the band‰’s frontman, skillfully patches together twenty minutes of harmonious vocals, crackly instruments and obtrusive noises into a musical journey.

For all of Portugal‰’s seismic switches, the band never loses sight of its core. Each album makes tremendous use of vocal harmonies that blend in to back up John Gourley‰’s artful and powerful lyrics. The band nearly always packs a dour message in saccharine sweet wrapping paper. Portugal has a mastery of the bittersweet that tends to culminate at the end of each album in a song with sweet melodies shrouding heartbreaking words.

“Everyone is golden, everyone is golden‰” Gourley and the band chant at the end of the album Satanic Satanist, “Nobody will love them, nobody will love them.‰” Toward the end of every sharp spin Portugal reminds you that you are still gravitating around their core. They will always unveil lyrics that smash up your happiness, but to a melody that leaves you smiling.

Across interviews and AMAs Portugal. The Man say that they look to the Beatles for inspiration. It makes absolute sense as they create a sound anyone can grow to love and, like the Beatles, make change their mantra, while never feeling unfamiliar.

Mother Mother, is in, many ways a similar band with a different direction. Both bands revel in the little human miseries that make for good song opportunities. Each artist matches intensely dour messages with fun and the uptempo sounds. The two groups even equally rely on floating vocal harmonies. Most of all, they rotate unyieldingly around their own cores. Ever aware of their identity, they have used that self-knowledge to make change a part of it.