Elias Bender Ronnenfelt is known as the lead singer of Iceage but now he's going to be known as the leader of the formidable Marching Church. The new one from this Danish band, Let It Come Down, will drop on Friday via Sacred Bones Records and it's a brash bit of indie full of call-outs to the touchstones of the post-punk era's peak years.
Opening with "Let It Come Down" and the more propulsive "Up for Days", the new Marching Church album immediately recalls the best material from Crime and the City Solution. If the songs are not quite as languid at times, they have a similar sound that is unshakable. The lanky "Inner City Pigeon" is full of menace and coiled power, while the superb "Lion's Den" nods in the direction of the more sinister moments from the Rolling Stones back-catalog. Elsewhere, on the nearly-uplifting "Achilles Heel", Marching Church sound like nothing so much as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds even while bringing the faintest trace of a melody-line from American gospel to the fore.
At their best, Marching Church bridge the sounds of current indie with styles from the Eighties. That one can hear traces of influences as disparate as The Gun Club and The Lords of the New Church here gives the music of Marching Church a fairly broad appeal. Invigorating despite the dour nature throughout the record, what's on offer here is fairly interesting for any fan of anything that Nick Cave touched in the first few decades of his career, as well as for fans of Iceage or Choir of Young Believers, bands whose members participate here.
Let It Come Down by Marching Church will be out on Friday from Sacred Bones Records. Follow Marching Church via their official Facebook page.
[Photo: Elizabeth Peyton]