Has it really been nearly four and a half years? The first time I heard Montt Mardie. Winter 2005. The ‘High School Drama’ single. “Like Bronksi Beat on a mid-80s Grange Hill set” I said. And wasn’t it though?
So yes, four and half years later. A third album (Skaizerkite) just released, and what a treasure it is. Horns rush your heart in a surge of adrenalin. Synthetic possibly, but when they sound so delicious, well, who really cares. It’s Dexys does disco. Fingers click, guitars shiver, shimmy and shake. It’s Swedish Chic on a catwalk. Acoustic kisses drop from the heavens, spotlit by a voice cracking with delicate cutters. Its bleached Lomo snapshot chic. Strings (again, synthetic maybe and all the finer for it) scratch, sear and soar. Melodies that take off for the sun on a wink and a prayer. It’s ‘Like A Virgin’ glimpsed through Stockholm’s secret sugared Pop kaleidoscope. It’s Tough Alliance slipping a tongue to Friends Again in a frantic lost embrace. Haircut 100 sliding a hand into Britney’s jeans pocket. Yeah. Grab me a piece of that.