5 March 2024

Photo by Richard Kelly

Band: MARTIAL ARTS (Manchester, UK)
Who: 5 fresh indies who pack angst and art into precision-cut convergences of razored riffs and fleeting oceanic harmonies, the band’s burning intent pours and pools in vast, melodic space then rattles in close, claustrophobic corners.

Debut single: WARSAW

“Warsaw’ was written resisting overanalysis to grasp a more genuine and
unaltered end result. It’s only possible while momentarily freeing ourselves
of doubt.”

Is the song named after Joy Division‘s original band name, that referred to Bowie‘s nightmarish tour de force Warszawa on his 1977 Low LP? Maybe, but I couldn’t
find anything pointing that way in the press info.

TUTV: Are there people in Manchester who are not in a band? The Northern city was
always a most fertile place for rock/punk/pop and still produces spellbinding music
on a very regular basis.

Enter these 5 young misfits with their very first effort. Warsaw is a serrated mid-tempo outpouring that moves up and down, forth and back, from its high-voltage wall-of-guitar parts to more reflective sequences. There’s a blood-curdling tension in the air from start
to finish, heavily accentuated by Jim‘s bone-chilling vocality. Pretty creepy at times, and pretty impressive overall.

Manchester hits again.

Piked post-punk at
its knife-edged best.

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ML: Instagram – Linktree