Marble Valley - Wild Yams

by Sarah Maybank

published: 7 / 6 / 2008

Label: Indikator Records
Format: CD

intro

Comfy-sounding stoner rock on latest album from Marble Valley, the current project of former Pavement member, Steve West

"I got high in my dreams last night"…"My life’s ajoke"…"Go on, go on, go on, be a martyr"…"I could drink an ocean"… So THAT’S what happens when you form a garage rock drone band with your mates, embark on an extended,weed and booze-fuelled jam sessions and become surgically grafted to your sofa. You emerge blinking into the daylight at some undetermined point in the future, fat, bearded, reeking of months’ worth of takeaway pizza - and wielding 12 head-nodding riff-driven mantras in which the good times, the hangovers and the paranoia have all merged into one.‘Wild Yams’ is all about the sofa-bound pleasures of being a bloke unencumbered by female companionship,making the most of his Velvets collection and keen to indulge a minor reserve of "What is the point of it all ?" bitterness. With gruff-voiced former Pavement-er Steve West on vocals, this is deep, but not in the way you’d think. So forget any notions of Freudian insight, but listen instead, astounded, to Herman Munster doing a karaoke Johnny Cash. The chugging tempo, meanwhile, boasts just enough miles per hour to stop it falling asleep at the wheel - but the best bits are when it periodically jolts itself awake and goes all inventively hyper. ‘Rocket Ship’ (“it’s all just a crock of shit”) makes an existential funk of the‘Batman’ theme and the harmonies of ‘Sunshine Rayland’evoke a reform school barbershop quartet. But we like‘Dirty’ best because it’ll get your hips wiggling out of their sockets with its raunchy, beer belly swagger. Embellished by exotic, Middle Eastern guitar twiddles it might be, but don’t worry, homebodies, this is comfy stuff that won’t require you to go any further than the corner shop for another crate of ale and handful of Rizlas in order to enjoy it. And for the most part, we can drink – or smoke - to that.

Track Listing:-

1 Whiskey
2 Rocket Ship
3 I Could Drink an Ocean
4 Computer Man
5 Diary of a Stone Mason
6 Fag & Ah Light
7 Chant
8 Desert
9 Dirty
10 Eric the Viking
11 Sunshine Rayland
12 Another Round
13 Wild Yams

interviews

Interview (2008)

A multi-national English/Dutch/American coalition, Marble Valley are former Pavement and Silver Jews member Steve West's current band. In a hilarious chat, Sarah Maybank talks to him, drummer Andy Dimmack and keyboardist Carl Hogarth, about their recently released fourth album, 'Slash and Laugh'

Interview (2008)