The Marches "4am Is The New Midnight" (Satellite/Star Records, 2008)

Attention-deficit friendly amalgamation

North Hollywood’s The Marches by their own admission aim to merge Indie, Electro, Motown and Classical music. So ambition and a healthily wide range of influences are in check then.

Exemplifying their genre-hoping, experimental ideals, nothing on a single track stays still for more than 30 seconds at a time and its 15 tracks are crammed into a sharp 32 minutes of ideas that can barely contain it. The title-track opts for some sly dance-floor subversion by way of a mixture of robotic rhythms that are then assaulted by stabs of furious classical piano chords and harmonies.

"Bad Touch" with it’s soul horns, tough rhythms and Motown funk feel is a highlight along with "Sometimes Sex Isn’t About The Money"’s Chopin-esque piano flourishes which give way to an all too brief wash of harmony-drenched vocals. Elsewhere "So Ill" and "Don’t Love With Your Eyes" (an upbeat jazzy number Amy Winehouse would pay good crack money for) amp up the addictive soul rhythms, while "Ghost of a Chance" occupies the dark jazz/dub-inflected claustrophobia Red Snapper used to excel at.

Awash with intelligent ideas probably meant to both strike a chord as much as confound, The Marches are actually impossible to pigeon-hole and entirely better for it. Hitting upon a schizophrenic, attention-deficit friendly amalgamation of crafted and intriguing sounds that maybe shouldn’t go together on paper but sound quite natural mashed together anyway. It’s sometimes difficult to work out who it is they’re aiming this at, but for anyone with an open mind there are many moments to savour.

Date review added:  Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Reviewer:  Ian Fildes
Reviewers Rating:
Related web link:  MySpace