Given it's pretty much impossible to listen to Black Marble and not think of Joy Division, let's just say it up front: yes, this sounds like Joy Division.
The duo —boasting Ty Kube, formerly of shouty, dayglo-electro rave-up Team Robespierre— roll out with stark synth figures, the metronomic clunk of a rudimentary drum-machine, and suitably Hook-ian bass ringing out loud and proud.
It's a study in aching, moaning, human emotions set against robotic rhythms; but there's a sense of decay present in every note, in every syllable, and every waft of odious air. Black Marble employ once-futuristic tools of space-age sound, but as if they've dug them, half-decomposed, from the dung pile; and, yes, that's two stench metaphors in one paragraph.
"Pretender" is the perfect introduction to Black Marble's gothed-out, nocturnal underworld. And, in turn, it serves as the opening track —the lure-in— on Weight Against the Door, the EP they've just put out on Hardly Art.
Black Marble, "Pretender"
Photo © Ashley Leahy
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