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Please Please You & Brudenell PresentsMartha
Sunday 8th September, 7.30pm
£14adv >> http://www.pleasepleaseyou.com
*Tickets go on sale on Thursday 2nd May at 10am*
Durham indiepop-punks Martha return with their fourth album, and it might just be their best one yet. With their endlessly radiant hooks dialled up to maximum setting, paired with another heart-rending and relatable lyric sheet that reflects on the universal scars of the pandemic years, Please Don’t Take Me Back is the work of a band in the form of their life. It’s also an instant classic – one that’s both smartly prescient and warmly addictive.
Recorded at Nottingham’s JT Soar by ‘Bad’ Phil Booth (The Cool Greenhouse, Rattle, Grey Hairs), Please Don’t Take Me Back is a timely collection of deliciously catchy pop songs about ‘resisting the feeling that the good days are behind us’.
Two things set these songs apart. Firstly, the sense of resolution the band provide by working through these fears to find what positivity they can – making this the go-to record for your ongoing existential crisis in 2022. Secondly, there’s the effortless brilliance which ensures every melody cements itself to your memory from the very first listen – album closer “You Can’t Have A Good Time All Of The Time” might be their breeziest singalong moment yet, all wrapped up in a song about the planet’s ongoing environmental catastrophe. You’ll hear echoes of The Housemartins, The Weakerthans, Cheap Trick and Heavenly in their sound, but ultimately it sounds like Martha found a way to turn their strongest features all the way to 11. What better way to process the aftermath of the past two years?
While their previous record – 2019’s Love Keeps Kicking – saw them remaining defiant in a world that seemed to be breaking apart, Please Don’t Take Me Back explores the scattered fragments of what followed and tries to make sense of how we navigate the smoking remains.
First formed in the small village of Pity Me, Durham, in 2011, Martha released their debut EP the following year on guitarist Jonathan Cairns’ DIY label, Discount Horse. Tours on both sides of the Atlantic soon followed, along with two albums for the UK’s much-missed indiepop stable Fortuna Pop: 2014’s Courting Strong (also released in the United States by Salinas Records) and 2016’s sophomore effort Blisters In The Pit of My Heart (via Dirtnap Records in the US). In the
meantime, the band became figureheads for the UK’s DIY pop scene by balancing their obvious talents with a clear set of ethics – anti-capitalist, first and foremost – and an open-hearted warmth that’s often absent from the foreground of punk rock.
Please Don’t Take Me Back is a fine addition to Martha’s discography; their most life-affirming yet and a welcome ripple of light at a time when it’s often difficult to see past the darkness. Listen and love: the beat perpetual drives on.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Crescent Community Venue, 8 The Crescent,York, United Kingdom
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