Last year I reviewed a couple of EP releases from Soapbox Marathon and was somewhat amazed by what the band did. They just seemed to play what they liked in terms of style, listening to both releases left me confused in a really good way, I love a band who just do what they want to do. So news of a whole album of Soapbox Marathon goodness was received with joy here at LSF Towers.
After what I can only describe as a mutant really slowed down surf sounding short intro track called ‘Man Alive’ we are dropped into ‘Surprise 2’ which sounds like warped indie or, as my helpful friend called it, ‘the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band does indie’. That’s indie of the old style by the way. Although at times it sounds rather like The Kinks to be honest. It is weirdly compelling.
‘No Post From Denmark’ – I love the titles of the songs on this album by the way – sounds like something I can’t exactly put my finger on. Various things have flitted through my head – XTC for one, although it has something of an indie thing going on in places. But it has the strangest guitar break I’ve heard in a long time.
That ‘what the hell does that remind me of?’ thing continues with ‘Slack’ which sounds like some strange Aztec Camera song, until it gets all psychy. Although it rather confusingly sounds a bit like The Libertines in places.
Look I’m going to stop this ‘it sounds like XXX’ thing. It’s not entirely useful. And it makes the band sound like all they do is make pastiches of other band’s music, which isn’t what they do at all. What Soapbox Marathon do is to write songs that sound like they want them to sound without being tied into any one sort of genre.
With that in mind let’s go on. ‘Cosmic Disco’ sounds like a bizarre cross between a Brit-pop song and something rather jazzy. It has some rather snazzy backing vocals. ‘The Dopest Ghost in Town’ continues that rather jazzy feel but it’s also somewhat post-punk. It sounds – and I’m going to break the rule I put in place above – like a Camper Van Beethoven track – not ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling’ mind but their rather more way out there stuff.
And suddenly we are all acoustic, ‘Stale Mate’ is all warped singer/songwriter, it’s all slightly off-kilter. I guess you could say it sounds rather psychedelic.
‘Desert Island (20/20)’ is a slow track. It has spoken vocals in places, it’s all 50s’ lounge music but rather bizarrely has a guitar part that sounds rather Smiths’ like in places albeit slowed down. But this is before it builds to something epic.
‘First and Last’ is all artfully weirdly 60s’ pop with a twist. That twist being it sounds slightly punky. It has the most wonderfully out of tune piano.
For no apparent reason the band go all electric blues for ‘Lady Bird’. Look people this song has the most fantastic guitar. It also has the weirdest funniest lyrics I’ve heard in a long time. But then it changes and becomes something else. And then it goes back to something all jazzy blues with saxophone.
‘Satin Drag’ is acoustic guitar led, it’s vaguely jazzy. But it revs up. It’s a builder folks. And the outro features some lovely guitar.
Album title track – ‘Good Life’ – closes the album. It’s vaguely punky, vaguely something else entirely. It has the most weirdly earwormy tune in places. It features all sorts of vocal effects. It’s huge and epic.
Summing up this album is hard. This album is fantastic. It’s full of inventive music that has no apparent link in style apart from the fact that they have that ‘Soapbox Marathon, don’t do the obvious’ thing going for them. I love it, it sounds like a lot of the music I used to listen to in the late 70s and early 80s – that DIY music. The difference being that the band know how to play incredibly well, none of what they do would work unless they did. It’s not easy listening, you need to take your time and get used to what the band do, it then becomes incredibly rewarding.
This is something different, if you like music that does it’s own thing and does that brilliantly, this is for you.
