the marder

For your consumption:
THE MARDER release debut EP 'Men's Ruin'.
Recorded by Steve Albini in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Available on Limited Edition 10" Vinyl.
www.swaysrecords.com
PRESS
"THE MARDER * record of the week *
The Marder immediately impressed me the first time I ever saw them – luckily enough, I also became the first person to write about them. Then their demo featuring “The Judge” came along making a well earned ‘demo of the week’. So far so good. Many bands have decided to pack their stuff into a flight case and head to Albini’s Electrical Audio in Chicago. The Marder have done just that and the results in this case, are rather astounding. Somehow, Albini has managed to refine their sound whilst also giving it a bit of an accelerated thrust. “The Judge” is riddled with it’s original hooks but flies at a much higher altitude, whilst “My Historian” sounds like it can take on anything Brooklyn may care to throw our way. An original classic, “If The West apologised To The East” sounds as though it has been surgically removed from 1980, with the Gang Of Four and Theatre Of Hate desperately clinging on at the other end. The final track “Forty” is a straight up new wave session, combining solid, slightly gothic guitar lines with a bass that sounds like chugging tank (an internal reference also, to the band's name). The Marder are at the cutting edge of Manchester’s new wave and whist they were two years ahead in 2007, the world it seems, still hasn’t caught up with them.
MMMM ½
Review by JA - ManchesterMusic.co.uk
-------
***A SUBBA-CULTCHA.COM SINGLE OF THE MONTH***
"With Steve Albini at the helm, The Marder create a stunning mix of Joy Division & The Strokes all delivered with a burning intensity-one’s to keep an eye out for!"
-----
As any self-respecting Star Wars Extended Universe nerd will know, the haggard Emperor Palpatine created several clones of himself in order to ensure that his dark influence would continue to perpetuate itself throughout the galaxy. Upon hearing the Manc-tastic post-punk of The Marder, I’m convinced that Mark E. Smith has visited the same laboratory. On the song If The West Apologised to the East, Benjamin Ward barks with a suitably Smithian fascistic authority, over a primal rock backing that rumbles like a panzer tank. That’s not to say that The Marder are Fall imitators, far from it; elsewhere on Men’s Ruin, major key guitar and bass are entangled into riffs that wouldn’t sound out of place in the post-punk poppery that was in vogue circa 2005. The Marder have produced a brilliant EP, giving more weight to theory that Manchester will keep churning out great bands until the sun implodes.Review by THE SKINNY
-----
"with influences largely from the interesting and leftfield indie end of post-punk (Magazine, Gang Of Four, Factory circa 1981). They were always an interesting prospect but a recent trip to Chicago to record with the godfather of alternative Steve Albini seems to have focused them into something even more ferocious and powerful." Cath Aubergine
-----
"Punk rock comes back again this month with a rather shifty 50’s feel to it courtesy of the Marder in their fine EP." GLASSWERK
-------
THE MARDER are very much a band you want to keep a very careful eye on. Their bleak twangy tones are suitably informed by a remote obsession with early Factory singles, The Chameleons, the progressive rumblings of latter day bands such as Foals and George Orwell. Theirs is a vision of 1984 set in black and white and despair and the guitarist has his guitar hitched up so high that it’s literally being sucked into his armpit. The end result is a jerky, very clever twist of timings that makes Interpol sound as smooth as Bobby Brown, but it’s the voice, stolen from the Postcard Records era of Orange Juice and Josef K that provides the final, convincing, musical wrench. Superb stuff from a band we’ll no doubt be hearing a lot more from."
Review by Manuel Ecostos - ManchesterMusic.co.uk