Marbled Eye - Read The Air

Monday, March 25, 2024 | Records | Art Punk, Post Punk

What i said about Ura­ni­um Club's ef­fect on garage punk a cou­ple weeks back, sim­i­lar things i can at­test to this Oak­land group con­cern­ing their par­tic­u­lar (sub-)genre. Here we have a new LP by an­oth­er band who, de­spite far from be­ing the most pro­lif­ic of acts out there, has clear­ly sent plen­ty of rip­ples through the post- and art punk scene of re­cent years. It's been over five years since their last record and sure­ly things have kept mov­ing since then, as ev­i­denced by a ma­tured sound on dis­play here that once again presents them on the cut­ting edge of their own niche, con­sid­er­ably ad­vanc­ing and de­vel­op­ing their sound and craft while still re­tain­ing all the traits that made them so spe­cial in the first place. What's al­ready been for­shad­owed with their 2022 dig­i­tal sin­gle Dirty Wa­ter comes in­to full bloom here - their songs and arrange­ments, while still be­ing every bit as eleb­o­rate and an­gu­lar con­struc­tions, have gained a lot in terms of el­e­gance and melod­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty, their com­po­si­tions al­ways be­ing ground­ed in care­ful and in­tri­cate song­writ­ing crafts­man­ship. Songs like the bril­liant first sin­gle See It Too kin­da chan­nel the most melod­ic and catchy as­pects of '70s Wire while en­rich­ing those smar­ty­pants aes­thet­ics with tons of hu­man warmth and sin­cere emo­tion.