MARCHING CHURCH - Telling It Like It Is

Elias Bender Rønnenfelt seems ever more determined to shake off his past with the ferocious punk-rockers Iceage. He does so by returning to the scene of the crime, namely the side project Marching Church, a Danish outfit that has, surprisingly, reached its second album. What once looked like the whim of a frontman tired of emulating the Birthday Party, ready to bet on a potential future as a new Nick Cave, is now a fully-fledged band ready to run entirely on its own.

"Telling It Like It Is" is a showcase of timid harmonic dissonances, of beguiling interplay between piano and guitars, as well as odd time signatures and melodramatic dark textures, skillfully calibrated and disguised with strings, flutes, wind instruments, melodica, viola and little electronic trickery.

If the variety of "This World Enough" momentarily caught the listener's attention and interest, it remained clear that the line between self-indulgence and the real substance of the Danish musician's imagination was rather thin.

The more choral tone of this new album not only avoids the shallows of the obligatory comparison with his guiding light Nick Cave, but even injects a sufficient dose of pathos, underlining more mature, more cohesive songwriting.

Marching Church pull off the difficult feat of giving body and soul to sounds already thoroughly digested elsewhere; post-rock tinged with rage and pain still exerts its unhealthy fascination, even when the comparisons grow awkward (the U2-style guitar on "Up For Days") and muddled (the softened new wave of "Hearts Of Life").

The most original and curious track is the crooked "Lion's Den", a hypnotic garage ballad resting on a groove worthy of the best Primal Scream, while the theatrical, cryptic tone of "Information" also offers more than one cerebral jolt, drowned in sonic and vocal outbursts with a high alcohol content, dangerously close to the atmospheres of another Australian ensemble (the Triffids).

The cursed romanticism of “Let It Come Down”, the predictable clichés of “Inner City Prison”, the daring noir jazz of “Florinda Breeze”, the stadium-rock riff of “2016”, and the two desperate, icy songs tucked near the end (“Achille’s Hell”, “Calenture”) still manage to hold their own charm.

The real risk with an album like “Telling It Like It Is” is that its emotions and good vibrations are liable to vanish the moment the CD is taken out of the player (or the vinyl off the turntable), leaving behind only a vague impression — one that makes Marching Church a potential, if uncertain, hope for rock's near future.

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14/01/2017