Enigmatic Scouse octet MARLOWE have been coming up on the creative rails for some time now, and this double A-side taken from their fine, lexically-challenged ‘Deep Breathe Fake Air’ album shows just how good they can be when they put their mind to it.
Lead track ‘Cigarettes & Novelties’ is about as plangent and ballad-like as Marlowe get as a rule, but while this is a restrained beauty of a song, there’s still a tangible undertow of menace being dragged along in the song’s wake, not to mention a tinge or two of Thom Yorke in Simon Bradshaw’s voice and some gorgeously fork-tongued slide guitar which slithers along with evil in its’ heart.
Nominal flip ‘The Relic’ is more traditional, visceral Marlowe, chock full of see-sawing riffs, strings that brood and swell and Bradshaw’s voice threatening to slip its’ leash at any second. It’s a tremendously dramatic set-piece and all the better for leading into a third album-based tune ‘Your Luck Really Matters To Me’: another sensual broodathon built around a lovely mesh of acoustic and electric guitars, a Robert Kirby-style string arrangement and Bradshaw’s upfront and nakedly vulnerable vocal. It’s tangibly pretty, but inherently unsettling – surely the essence of Marlowe in a nutshell, basically.
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