As warm and boisterous as an eager summer day yet but one lined with intimate shadows carrying their own magnetic melancholy, the new album from Marshmallow Coast is little short of pure captivation. Across near on thirty minutes and eight cheerfully swinging tracks, Memory Girl is a fresh electro pop rock lover very easy to take in the imaginative arms and boisterously dance with.
Hailing out of Athens, Georgia, Marshmallow Coast is the brainchild of Andy Gonzales (The Music Tapes, of Montreal, Mind Brains).With Sara Kirkpatrick, Jim Hix, and Steven Trimmer alongside the band has conjured a release which embraces the senses like the rising morning sun. It is rich in warmth and hope, suggestive in knowing intimacy and understanding yet as mentioned has that darker intimation which haunts everyday life and new experiences.
Memory Girl begins with Warm Bodies and immediately the song’s balmy air and comfy touch hugs the senses. Its buoyant stroll is boisterous yet has a restraint which has hips swaying rather than the body bouncing but movement as inescapable as it is eager. There is an eighties synth pop glow to the track, a bright and engaging hue spilling across the whole of the release as swiftly confirmed by next up Take You On. With a gentler urgency to its gait as firm beats pounce with metronome like insistency, the song is a hazier affair compared to its predecessor. Indeed keys bring an almost dirty breeze to their otherwise crystalline shimmer at times, Gonzales’s tones falsetto similarly kissed whilst providing a warmly affectionate proposition to song and listener within the embrace.
Lover’s Leap follows, sauntering in with a bold funk nurtured swagger as guitars melodically tease around it. Again the body was manipulated into involvement as the resourcefully infectious track cheerfully strolled along though once again a raw mist of sonic intimation rears its suggestive head throughout the captivation before making way for the equally inviting K. Freeman Enslaved with its Orange Juice-esque jangle and that eighties synth pop exuberance which itself brings a further XTC like imagination.
Through the electro pop exploits of Sinz Of My Father, a track which is something akin to a meeting of Thomas Dolby and Devo, and Shooting Star with its tantalising celestial glide, the album just accentuated its hold on ears and appetite with the first of the two emerging as a real favourite play by play. They are in turn matched in success by the funk pop waltz of the increasingly compelling Foxy Boy, a track which almost stalks the listener with an infectious smile on its face and a seductive tease in its movement.
The album’s title track brings things to a close and though it is a song which did not grip our ears as tightly and dramatically as its predecessors, it left a warm glow and a taste for more of its mellow, thoughtful, and sultry intimation.
It is a fine end to a release which just grew in presence and temptation by the play; its summery haze a real but knowing escape to the shadows of daily life.
Memory Girl is out now through Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records.
https://www.facebook.com/marshmallowcoast/
Pete RingMaster 8/01/2019
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
Next up is Ringmaster, already a favourite offering from the band here. Released as a single and teaser earlier this year, it is a song which we have a natural connection with not only through its name but in the fact we somehow managed to be a part of its inspiration or rather our review of Flower With Knife was. A richly alluring serenade with a lively energy and pulse, the track rises from a sonic sigh and melodic caress with the ever magnetic presence and tones of Dawn leading the way. Immediately there is a drama to sound and voice; words emulating the theatre as the song’s sawdust earthiness colludes with melancholy lit but elegantly seductive harmonics. As burlesque nurtured shadows continue to envelop the darksome heart of the encounter, a Stevie Nicks-esque hue tinting the vocals, intimate shivers breed at the lure of the crepuscular but starry romance.
The calmer All Wanna Go To Heaven through its initial less energetic entrance, compared to its predecessors, only leads into a snare of boldly catchy and melodically enticing temptation. The voice of Hermes once more stands tall and captivating within the song, a given proven track by track as the sounds around her cast their creative theatres. Pop, rock, and metal strands all go into its ear wrapping weave before the contagion of Hellawake continues the diversity bred within the Sick N’ Beautiful’s sound with its electro pop meets industrial punk shuffle.
As mentioned, Wavin’ Goodbye is the prelude to their next EP, a song embracing familiar essences in its own fresh and energetic bounce. Keys shimmer in and around ears initially, closely following vocals cloaked in harmonies as eager to entice as the rhythmic coaxing now at play. Once into its infectious stride, the song glistens with melodic enterprise whilst its jangle feels like it is teasing the darker grooves of the bass. In some ways the track is like a fusion of Heaven 17 and Orange Juice, in other ways MGMT meets Empire Of The Sun comes to mind; all flavours which add to the overall shine of the song and its introspective theme of a dying person looking back on their life.
The EP’s title track opens up the fascination, Busted Flush a web of seductive melodies and shadowy rhythms in an atmospheric caress equally as dual natured. As the throated threat of bass colludes with crisp beats, Taylor’s exotic tones finger the imagination, backed by keys which hold suggestiveness in every melodic note. The song plays like the backdrop to a cold war romancing, a canvas for a Doctor Zhivago/ The Spy Who Came in from the Cold like involvement with Taylor the seductress narrating events. Across its blossoming landscape, Firth matches the vocal allurement with his poetic melodies and keys cast theatre further tapping into more sci-fi shared echoes of suggestion. It is a glorious transfixing as exotically dark and broodingly portentous as it is bizarrely magical.
That EP’s title track reinforces its attention grabbing adventure within its first seconds; buoyant rhythms and inviting melodies, reminding a touch of eighties UK band King Trigger, laying the first invitation. Soon melodies dance as grooves spring around harmonically warm vocals; it all adding to an inescapable lure for body and enjoyment.
