https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-EWquKhZTg
(If you're not familiar with Elias's band Iceage, first off you're missing out. Secondly, this is great freakin' performance, plus I was at this show, so kudos to that).
The album starts off with “Let It Come Down”, a warm intro with plenty of darkness lurking in the back. However if you’re a fan of Elias’s work at all, you’re probably already expecting some serious dark undertones. The instrumentals are beautiful here though, very colorful as well. “Let It Come Down” is a slow burning start, and for the most part it’s more of the same fro the last Marching Church release. Personally though, I don’t really dig Elias on this sort of track. What was so great about Iceage’s “Plowing Into The Field Of Love” was the groups head first dive into this more artsy sound, but they also kept their aggression. Even at that album’s most stunning moments, there was an edge to it. “Let It Come Down” certainly has the atmosphere down, and it has an instrumental to gawk at, I can’t really get into a sound of Elias without his boys in Iceage. And the worst part about this is just how solid some of the aspects to tracks like this are. Elias can clearly still write visceral lyrics, and his ghoulish, twisted delivery hasn’t gone flat in the slightest. So no, “Let It Come Down” isn’t completely boring, but listening to tracks like this just really make me want to go listen to Iceage. It’s not bad though, and it’s still a chilling performance. I have a lot of the same problems with “Heart Of Life”, which off the bat seems like it has a little more bit to it. Here, we see Marching Church bring in some folk elements which really doesn’t shock me at all, so many elements here we saw Elias toying with on “Plowing Into The Field Of Love”. But while the folk influence is cool, and the pianos chugging away in the back are nice, “Heart Of Life” doesn’t have much more going for it. As far as the instrumental goes, it’s all well and good. To be honest, it sounds like it could have been thrown together by any indie band floating around a coffee shop, which isn’t necessarily bad. My problem on “Heart Of Life” is Elias. His performance on this track is grossly out of place to be honest, not to mention lyrically this doesn’t even remotely sound like his style. Big mistakes like that really make a few of these tracks here really hard for me to sink my teeth into. I have to give Elias credit though, that vocal breakdown later on in the track some twisted shit and is a huge improvement. But overall “Heart of Life” is a mess, plus the production on this track is an absolute joke. Like, all the instrumentals are supposed to sound like they’re clashing towards the end, I get that. But it doesn’t even sound edgy, it just sounds messy. Thankfully though, Marching Church start turning things around quickly. “Up For Days” starts off with a solid drum fill offering up that little extra oomph I was dying to hear. One thing I do have to say, it is really interesting to see Elias out of his comfort zone. Iceage has such a pummeling constant atmosphere, to hear Elias on these elaborate instrumentals is just a show within itself. “Up For Days” has an odd groove to it, and Elias picks it up wonderfully. It’s far from perfect, and it’s still missing a real bite to it, but “Up For Days” is a huge improvement. There’s a great use of buildup here, but c’mon would it kill you guys to use an extra guitar or two on this track? As it goes on, “Up For Days” gets better and better. The track overall has a huge old school post punk, almost gothic vibe to it. Bauhaus has always been looked at as an influence for Elias and his groups, and it comes through here magnificently. Not to mention, Elias’s performance has a really great sense of paranoia here that works really well. “Inner City Pigeon” on the other hand, I have zero complaints about. Right off the bat this one has some serious funk to it, almost in a dark waltz sort of fashion, another sound that Elias has toyed with in the past here and there and always done well with. His vocals here are so dreary, so deadpan, they’re absolutely perfect for a track like this. That lone violin that joins him, weeping alongside him, is so much more effective than if he would have went with an entire string section. Then we have these absolutely chilling background vocals behind Elias that are so twisted and ghastly, they literally sound like the souls of the departed crying out for help. “Inner City Pigeon” is a slow burner clearly, but it pays off magnificently. Even the pianos here are so filled with sorrow, and I haven’t even touched the cymbal taps yet. Those cymbal taps when they come in late in the song are executed perfectly and bring in such a sense of dread. All of a sudden all bets are off, as an accordion pops in giving this a real sense of uneasiness. It’s a bizarre track, but it all comes together and works wonderfully. It’s tracks like this that give Marching Church their own distinct sound which is something they really need.
You know, overall this album is head and shoulder bigger and better than Marching Church’s last release. So I’m gonna just quick get some big issues I have off my chest so I can talk about everything they did right. “Lion’s Den”, one of the earliest tracks released from this album is an absolute strange experience. Critics loved this track, but I really don’t get the appeal at all. It starts with some lazy accordion melodies that quickly fire up into a more bluesy track. It’s just as murky and deeply dark as other tracks on here, as far as the atmosphere goes Marching Church is right on the money. It’s the vocals that really lose me fast believe it or not. I can’t tell if that’s Elias singing, and I almost hope it isn’t, because seriously what the hell even is this. There’s some serious tension being built up in the instrumental which is great, but the vocals just keep throwing me off big time. In that last minute or so however, Elias DOES pick things up, and he sounds back to his old self, where the hell was this for the rest of “Lion’s Den”. “Information” late in the album actually starts off incredibly promising, with one of the most disturbing sound effects I’ve heard in recent memory (Seriously that was creepier than any horror movie I’ve seen this year). Once again Elias has taken us back to this Dark Waltz territory. The instrumental works great again, but sadly Elias is clearly not himself here either. Here, he doesn’t even sound like his usual tortured self, he sounds like he’s putting on an act in some play where he has just discovered his “true love” to be killed. As the instrumentals go on, yes they’re a little slow, but they’re not bad. Elias though doesn’t shape up at all, having absolutely no soul or emotion behind his singing here. And in a really weird twist, there are these 5 or 6 second massive buildups to the chorus that are executed perfectly, they come off legitimately hectic. But everything else here is painfully boring, this one couldn’t end quick enough for me.
Overall, I feel like Marching Church really trimmed the fat on this album. There were so many good ideas and concepts on their last album, but at the end of the day they were so overblown and just way too much to swallow. Then we have tracks here like “Florida Breeze” which have all the great elements Elias has to offer, just so much more straightforward. Everything about this intro gets under your skin and refuses to leave, mostly those cymbal taps that when in the right hands (which they are) really add so much. When Elias comes in, he sounds like he’s in so much legitimate pain it isn’t even funny, he literally sounds like he’s using this track to cry out for help. Not to mention, some of these instrumentals sound like they’re literally in just as much pain as he is, most notably that same lone violin and weeping guitar. “Florida Breeze” comes off as some of the more artsier tracks on here, but this just comes off so much more structured. Elias is certainly still the star though seemingly of his own stage show, and we’re just forced to sit around and watch him as he cries in agony. Marching Church’s last album was filled with unfinished thoughts and ideas. The ideas presented on this album may not be as strong or as interesting as some of Iceage’s, but they can absolutely stand their own. The horns that float in compliment Elias wonderfully, they actually sound like some of the breezier tracks on the latest BadBadNotGood album. As breezy as this is, it’s still a somber sort of breeze, one that’s literally sucking the energy out of Elias with each passing second. Hell it’s exhausting just getting through this track, but it’s worth it. Plus, that 5 minutes or so of buildup totally pays off in that huge blast of the energy towards the end. On “2016” we get Marching Church doing their best Iceage impression, in the best way. This track is easily the most post punk song here. Here, the Iceage influence is absolutely staring you right in the face, it’s not nearly as threatening as an Iceage track but it’s still there trust me. To be honest, after the last few slow, draining tracks, “2016” is a fantastic pick-me-up. Literally, this sounds like a Joy Division b-side, but they pull it off so well that it doesn’t even bother me or even come off weird. The only real complaint I have about this one is kinda childish, it sounds like it SHOULD have been an Iceage song, mainly on their “Plowing Into The Field Of Love” album. Whether or not were just getting leftovers from that really doesn’t even matter, “2016” is fantastic and it breaks up the album just so well. In a bizarre way, this track is almost uplifting, even though it has most of the same tones and instrumental stylings. That sole violin is back once again, and it really just makes every emotion here so much more real, and the horns that eventually show up are epic as hell. This album is seriously picking up impressively. Next up is “Achilles Heel”, and let me just say what the hell even is this intro! Elias, you’ve outdone yourself with this one, that opening noise is easily the most unsettling thing I’ve heard all year. The drums are absolutely wild on this track, and sound like a mixture of some early Marilyn Manson and some early Aphex Twin. “Achilles Heel” is weird in the best way, having almost a dark carnival feel to this one. It may have taken a while, but this album is picking up so quickly. “Achilles Heel” is one of the most experimental tracks here, and easily the most genre-bending. I don’t even know what genre this is anymore, or even if it has a name. Nonetheless it’s twisted and I love it, and Elias’s performance here is one of his best on the entire album. “Achilles Heel” is constantly keeping you on edge, it creeps along so craftily, ready to shift genre at any moment. Also, as dark and twisted as this track is, it’s certainly colorful at the same time. Then we have the biggest curveball of the entire album, the finale, “Calenture”. At first I really didn’t know what to take from such a light intro, but when those guitar licks and that same damn violin pop in I can’t deny this track at all. Elias from his opening bars sounds so incredibly in pain, and his opening lyrics talking about running out of water two days ago, you definitely feel his pain more than ever. He literally sounds like he performed this song with his last few breaths. “Calenture” stylistically is all over the place, but in the best way. It’s sort of country, it’s sort of bluesy, it almost has an ancient folk song feel to it (the kind of track passed down from person to person hundreds of years ago). Boy did this all turn around quickly.
Rating: 7.5/10
Give A Listen To: "Calenture", "Inner City Pigeon", "Achilles Heel", "2016"
Overall Thoughts: Marching Church come through with an album that's the exact opposite of their last album in all the right ways. Their last album had a lot of really cool sounds that mirrored Elias Bender Rønnenfelt's main band Iceage, and there were a lot of really great ideas throughout. However, "Telling It Like It Is" is so much more compact, straightforward, and interesting. Elias doesn't sound too far from his comfort zone anymore, and I can listen to a lot of this and just enjoy it and not wish I was listening to Iceage. They really cemented their own sound on this album, and I'm interested what their future holds.
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