Live Review

Married To The Sea – Old Rapid, Liverpool

• 14th Jun 2010

Strolling down Seel Street on Saturday afternoon allowed one to take in the Sound City atmosphere and this was epitomised no more than by the Rapid Store roar of Liverpool’s own MARRIED TO THE SEA.

Combining a penchant for a saxophone with unusual and disparate influences (Leonard Cohen by way of The Replacements), they not only concoct a curious musical blend but also created genuine excitement amongst passers-by. Plying their trade with great zeal, they were helped not hindered by the novel experience of playing behind the shop front window which was once the front of hardware store Rapid.

Behind glass but with speakers outside to bridge the gap with the audience, this created a kind of eerie Madame Tussauds-come-to-life, museum affect which played into the hands of the group’s style.

Sounding as they do at times, like the soundtrack to a David Lynch flick, this was performance that really worked, visually as well as aurally. Right place at the right time this may have been but it may have gone a long to finding the band a new set of genuine fans. In numbers such as Metropolitan and Quite A Spell there lay a dearth of nuance and the former in particular is reminiscent of The Horrors’ Count In Fives.

Consisting of Nick Duckett, Greg McCoy, Simon Turner and Sam Walkerdine, they’ve recently released E.P. Hello Digger and this may well be worth a little exploration to see whether this intriguing performance was more than a mere fluke.