Fuzzy indie
Marble Valley, the band boasting Steve West, Pavement's drummer on vocals and no less than six other members (on this record) are back with a new full length album which was apparently written during Pavement's reunion tour in 2010 and recorded in Amsterdam by band member Remco 'Duche' Schouten. The band is a collective of musicians from all over and they've come together again to continue their love affair with melodic indie pop-rock. Their sound is synth heavy, guitar driven, often dowsed in fuzz and employs samples and multiple vocals to layer up the full, rich sound they create.
Often the album has is dreamy and atmospheric psych overtones in a too cool for its own good kind of way with tracks like 'The Dan Map Experience' using samples of talking and electro bleeps at the start before moving into distorted, warm bass and swirling synth, it's the perfect track to put on your ipod when you're walking, but when its on, you wont walk, you will strut with purpose- a good point of reference is the excellent Broken Social Scene album "You Forgot It In People" as the tone throughout "Breakthrough" is reminiscent of that record.
What Marble Valley does best is create songs you can boogie to; melodic, full of danceable rhythms and easy to pick up and sing along to (like the punchy vocals lines on 'Tokyo Hands') - their choruses are infectious and great to join in with. However, while there are many great moments on the record it can unfortunately after a few songs begin to feel a little familiar, sweet, yes, danceable, yes but ultimately it doesn't stay with you and the tracks quickly fade once you stop listening.