Marching Church’s début despite having some numerous moments of inspiration, felt a little bit like a collection of genre exercises that had been twisted beyond recognition. I had interpreted the tour Marching Church are currently in the middle of as a way of capping off the project for the time being, so that the group's members can go back to their respective day jobs. What I got was something entirely different.

Local support Morning Smoke have always impressed the numerous times I’ve caught them around Brighton and this is no exception, their gloomy post-punk perhaps closer to Marching Church front-man Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s main band Iceage. Their sound is gothic because of the evocative melodrama it evokes rather than because of any specific aesthetic signifiers. That and their predilection for wearing black.

After opening with the clattering noise of ‘Calling Out a Name’, Marching Church’s set is composed entirely of new material. The group’s music is far too esoteric to have anything that could be classed as fan favourites or crowd pleasers, but it's still an incredibly bold move to scrap an entire album of material before even having a proper opportunity to play them live. And considering how much I love some of the songs on The World is Not Enough, it means a lot when I say I’m glad almost everything I hear is entirely new to me.

By now Marching Church have grown into their sound, a blend of Philadelphia soul and the grandiosely gothic rock of Nick Cave. Occasionally Rønnenfelt’s voice reaches for a falsetto in attempt to mimic the more accomplished vocalist but his vocals crack. That fits Marching Church though; a collection of musicians who come from a background of making experimental music, bringing these sensibilities to attempting more commercial sounds. The result is continuously electrifying.

Elias Bender Rønnenfelt does nothing to dissuade me from my conviction that he’s one of the most compelling front-men in rock music currently. The punkish antagonism is still there, looking out on the crowd with cold indifference or maybe even downright contempt. At one point he swings his microphone to knock someone's phone away when he catches them staring at their screen in the front row. He’s also added a snake-hipped flamboyancy, making him both an alluring and threatening presence.

One song is introduced as ‘Inner City Pigeon’. “I’m a city pigeon”, Elias tells us complete with hand gestures to demonstrate his wings, “and I’m never coming down”. The orchestral instrumentation is limited to just a trumpet, but its forlorn melodies and haunting reverb at times recalls sombre Balkan folk. The last song adds gospel backing-vocals that blow your hair back and Rønnenfelt describing an evocative image of “crawling towards the town”. It seems Marching Church is only starting to get warmed up. A new album can’t come along quick enough.
Louis Ormesher
Photos: Tom Barlow Brown