by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
There’s plenty of post-punk bands in the UK that veer closer to spoken word performances than anything remotely melodic, the emphasis placed firmly on the lyrics and general tone of voice. In many cases it can feel like a chore to listen to, with nary a hook in sight. London’s Marcel Wave understand the need for balance, a task that Maike Hale-Jones, the band’s vocalist, excels at. Their sound jitters beneath a deft combination of her sardonic and poetic spoken vocals and sweeping melodies that feel enormous by comparison. Featuring members of the late great Sauna Youth and Cold Pumas, there’s a seasoned dexterity to their debut album, Something Looming, due out June 14th via Upset The Rhythm (UK) and Feel It Records (US).
Having shared the bent skronk of “Barrow Boys” and organ fueled boogie of “Stop: Continue,” Marcel Wave show a silkier vision of their sound on “Peg,” a gorgeous yet grim song that details the struggles and pressures of Hollywood and fame, particularly in the case of Peg Entwistle. While the subject matter is bleak, the song’s hook is brilliantly gripping, like a gluey subversion of the tension that lies in the stark verses.
Speaking about the song, the band shared:
“‘Peg’ is an elegy for Peg Entwistle, the actress who threw herself from the H of the Hollywood sign in 1932 at the age of 24. Crystallised in time as a tragic tale of Hollywood’s Golden Age, yet regurgitated most famously in typically salacious style by Kenneth Anger in his book Hollywood Babylon, the song’s accompanying video is both a Technicolor tribute to Anger’s own cinema and to the voiceless memory of Entwistle herself.”