Shortly before sitting down to write this column, I wrote a review of Angels of Destruction!, the new album by the Brooklyn-via-Philadelphia rock band Marah. It was not an easy review for me to put together; in fact, thinking about it literally kept me awake last night. I don’t encounter this problem with most record reviews—usually, I just listen to the album, do a little research on the artist I’m writing about, come up with a central theme around which to structure the review, and write it—but for me, Marah is not most artists.
Let me explain as best I can: I’ve been a fan of Marah since 2000, when I first heard the band’s second album, Kids in Philly. I’ve seen them in concert a handful of times, and I interviewed them once, prior to a show they were doing at New York City’s Mercury Lounge. (Let me note here: When I talk about Marah, I’m specifically referring to brothers Dave and Serge Bielanko, Marah’s singers and songwriters and the only two members of the band to appear in each of its many incarnations.) Back then—in July, 2002, to be exact—they were still living in Philadelphia, but we talked about Brooklyn—where I was living at the time—and they told me about their own dreams of moving there. They did indeed relocate there a few years later, and during the time we both inhabited the borough, I would occasionally see them around, on Bedford Avenue, at Muggs, laughing and drinking.
advertisement
On its own, none of this is necessarily enough to move me to the point of deep, dedicated fandom, but somewhere along the way, I felt a connection with Marah that I rarely feel with any band. I’m not sure what it was: something in Dave Bielanko’s voice, his delivery, his lyrics, something in the brothers’ energy or their performances…I can’t pinpoint it now, and I certainly didn’t notice it when it happened, but at some moment of openness, some instance of vulnerability, something in Marah’s music hooked me, pulled me in and touched me on a level that isn’t often touched.
I don’t expect to achieve total objectivity when I write a record review, nor do I expect any other critic to do so. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure total objectivity is even possible when discussing music. My problem is, I’m afraid I’ve lost any ability to rationally analyze Marah’s music for any listener except me. (This isn’t exclusive to Marah, of course: There are numerous artists to whom I feel such a connection, and I encounter this issue every time one of those artists releases new work.) That hasn’t stopped me, of course: I’ve now published reviews of the band’s last five albums. But every time I write about the band, I can’t help reflecting my own aspirations for them, my own expectations of them, and my own experiences with them.
In 2005, I reviewed the band’s fifth album, If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry, and I gave it a middling score (5 out of 10) and a negative review. I was let down by something in the band’s direction, I was bored and unhappy with the music, and I said so in print. But I was simply publishing my reaction to the record in the moment; today, these several years later, I feel a connection to it that I don’t have with many albums to which I’ve given higher scores and more positive reviews, and I’ve gone back to it many times since.
One such instance in particular stands out: It was a winter morning, I was in my car, alone, with If You Didn’t Laugh… on the stereo—this was a year or so after I’d moved out of Brooklyn, and for some reason I was missing my old home with an almost bottomless sadness—and the song “Sooner or Later” came on. “Sooner or Later” is a buoyant song, a drunken sing-along, not the kind of thing meant to elicit a deep emotional response, but hearing its chorus at that moment shook me:
“You’ll be coming back sooner or later,” sang the brothers, joyfully, “and we’ll be waiting for you.”
It was like a promise being made by an old friend, and right there—on the Ocean Parkway, doing nearly 80, on my way to the office—I nearly wept.
I cite this moment to illustrate both my weird connection to Marah and my fallibility as a critic, but also because it makes me think about the long paths we travel with the artists we truly adopt. We can’t help but judge them more harshly, expect more of them, demand more of them. And then, we can’t help but forgive them, and hope they forgive us.
