E.P Review: Black Magick Marching Band - The Dark Arts Will Break Our Hearts
Returning with a new E.P 'The Dark Arts Will Break Our Hearts', Chicago's Black Magick Marching Band create a tantalising blend of Psych and 60s Jangle Pop. Chicago native Ryan Doyle Elward took a listen.
There is a dynamic between the consistent format-for-every-song chord playing and the soloed notes which is eerily sedating. A mesmerizing pull of attention to something out of place, like a too well-lit spot of sun in a graveyard. And while those arpeggiated guitar parts are a little fussy at times, it is that part of the music which does well in dressing up the lyrics with optimism.
A pleasant trap to disguise the conversation which pervades each track with dark themes of futility and the inescapable aspects of life and feeling, of death and impermanence. Most notably the portent - at the end of the line at the end of the day they’re gonna carve you right up they’re gonna take you away in ‘Hallowell and James’.
Because of the continuous acoustic coverage for each song, that soft and drifting, melodious strumming unbroken, there is a mythic quality, as if serving to be the backdrop of a bard’s story. And with such a name even, Black Magick Marching Band (BMMB, deserving?) situates itself on a stage, as a performer, or in field amongst folk gathered ‘round paleolithic stone formations, passing rites. Medieval church bells almost matching the reverberant ringing notes – if it could be imagined – most obviously in ‘Maid Marion’.
The Dark Arts Will Break Our Hearts is an eighteen-minute Homeric epic with a title that promptly tells how it will end. Doom may be imminent, but it matters how it’s talked about, and this album was a gift to the topic.
r.d.e
You can follow Black Magick Marching Band on Facebook and Instagram. Buy 'The Dark Arts Will Break Our Hearts' from their Bandcamp.
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