Description
At last!!! We’ve had this one brewing for months now and it’s well worth the wait! What started off as a small run of CDrs has become At War’s most ambitious release to date, and I’m totally fucking chuffed by it!!! This collection comprises demos, live stuff, rarities and rehearsals from the UK’s most consistently interesting, forward-thinking, and just plain fucking great band of the last decade. Starting off from now and moving backwards through time to the early bedroom demo days, this CD shows Marzuraan’s evolution from simplistic droning minimalism of the two bass lineup to the full-on rock beast of today.
The album kicks off with a cover of Loop’s “Afterglow”, putting it through the post-Ginn blender and coming out with something great. The other cover here is a raging, lo-fi recording of Rollins Band’s “Turned Inside Out”, performed at the inaugural Glasgow Implodes fest a few years ago. There’s a fierce, noise-ridden performance of “Nice Wang” that I think I recorded on Julian Cope’s last tour (crowd (un)reaction the MZ was hilarious), the epic dark drone rock of GMT recorded at the Lord Clyde in Byker, and the aptly-named Kraut-esque monotone riff of “Earth 3” from the confusing Manbyrd cassette.
All in all, Marzuraan do it better than anyone else going right now; be it bleak minimal droning walls of sound, controlled experiments into feedback or baws-out “post” rock, without the scene points. They sound like the late, twisted Flag stuff on a mid-period Voivod album, with Swervedriver on in the background. Played by Helios Creed. Or maybe I just talked a load of bollocks, fuck knows! Buy this record, dickhead.
Totally great packaging by the guys at Thumbprint Press (HUGE thanks to WT for all the effort put into this, and Pete for artistic vision!); three-panel chipboard sleeve, double-sided print, with stark black letterpress and clear varnish. You may know these guys’ work from the Sunn live album or one of the many Bastard Noise family releases, but this tops the lot in my opinion! Top banana.
