Associations can be deceptive. "The Marble Index" is a legendary album by Germanic Warhol/ Velvets acolyte Nico: a doomed, smack-addled heroine who went from superstar to lowlife to oblivion and made a couple of the doomiest albums ever commited to vinyl en route. "The Marble Index", from 1969 (if memory serves) is quite probably the last word in non-more funereal black.
None of which prepares you for an aggressive, tough-but-tuneful trio named THE MARBLE INDEX, who hail from Hamilton, Ontario and make a seethingly healthy racket during the course of the four tunes on this EP.
Opener "I Believe" is the obvious A-side. Coming across as an unholy alliance of Big Star and UK modsters The Chords, it's like a summit meeting of classic UK new wave and US power pop and reverberates with one of those great, whiplash, pull-me, push-me riffs you feel you've heard a million times before, but is still as bracing as hell for all that. Singer/ guitarist Brad Germain has a screamy, emotionally-leaky voice perhaps best described as 'expressive' and would surely be charismatic live.
Promisingly, things stubbornly refuse to go downhill from thereon in. Both "Days Seem Longer" and "That Day" muscle their way in with staccato riffing and massive drumming and are cut from the same drama-pop cloth you'd associate with Razorlight and The Morenas. Throw in some nice jaywalking harmonics from bassist Ryan Tweedle on both tunes; the livid chords that ram the point home on "That Day" and Brad's willigness to go into emotional meltdown on a tune-by-tune basis and you're onto something pretty damn good.
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Actually, if anything, final track "A Lot Of These Things" is even better. It's a classic stomper, with economically broiling riffs, more counterpoint melody brilliance from Tweedle and drummer Adam Knickle's splashy Moon-style cymbal vandalism spurring Germain into driving blind and taking them right to the edge. It's a real killer, with heavy, Sugar-style overtones and would be the ideal way to end a live set, though I imagine they've probably already worked that out for themselves.
Fine first effort then. The pages of The Marble Index will be well-thumbed before long if they can maintain the confidence and, er, belief contained within "I Believe" and its' attendant assortment of goodies.
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