Mother (Luna Sea album)

Guitarist Sugizo speaks German on the opening track "Loveless"; he counts "eins zwei drei vier" ("one, two, three, four") at several parts throughout the song, and says "Du bist Lieblos" ("You are loveless") at its end.^[3]

Sugizo cited "Rosier" as one of the songs wherein he tried to replicate the "psychedelic feel of shoegaze bands" by using effects, "like playing fast with a wah-wah pedal, or using tape-echo and harmonizers. I couldn’t figure out how they did it, so I just made it into my own thing."^[4]

Vocalist Ryuichi wrote the lyrics to "Genesis of Mind ~Yume no Kanata e~" about a close friend who died.^[5] Inoran used his father's classical guitar to record the middle part of the song.^[6]

The single versions of "Rosier" and "Mother" are slightly different from the album's. The album was remastered and re-released by Universal Music Group on December 5, 2007, it came with a DVD of the promotional videos for "Rosier", "True Blue" and "Mother". This version reached number 195 on the Oricon chart.^[7]

Mother and the band's other seven major label studio albums, up to Luv, were released on vinyl record for the first time on May 29, 2019.^[8]

Mother reached number two on the Oricon Albums Chart, and charted for 30 weeks.^[9] In 1994, it was certified Platinum by the RIAJ for sales over 400,000.^[10] The album was named one of the top albums from 1989 to 1998 in a 2004 issue of the music magazine Band Yarouze and number 49 on Bounce's 2009 list of 54 Standard Japanese Rock Albums.^[11][12] In 2021, Jamie Cansdale of Kerrang! included Mother on a list of 13 essential Japanese rock and metal albums. Calling it Luna Sea's magnum opus, he wrote that it achieved "huge success by blending the gothic romanticism of albums past with radiant vibrancy."^[13] AllMusic's Alexey Eremenko called the album one of the band's best, along with 1998's Shine.^[14]

Music writer Takuya Ito wrote that, although each song on Mother is unique, they share a mysterious sense of unity that enhances each other's presence, while also containing mass appeal, thereby making the album a treasure not only within the visual kei scene, but within all of Japanese music. Noting it to contain the frenzied tones that were absent from their previous album Eden, Ito said the imagination and creativity that Luna Sea have had since their early days explodes on Mother. He described "Face to Face" as delving into gothic and industrial music, "Aurora" to be bathed in graceful melodies in an extension of Eden, and "In Future" as racing forward with punkish impulse, while incorporating digital effects.^[15]

"Rosier" was covered by High and Mighty Color for the 2007 Luna Sea Memorial Cover Album -Re:birth-.^[16] It was later included on their 2008 album Rock Pit. It was also covered by defspiral for Crush! 3 - 90's V-Rock Best Hit Cover Love Songs-, which was released on June 27, 2012, and features current visual kei bands covering love songs by visual kei bands of the 90's.^[17] Fantôme Iris, a fictional visual kei band from multimedia franchise Argonavis from BanG Dream! covered the song on their first solo live Fantôme Iris 1st LIVE -C'est la vie!-.^[18]