See You In Magic: an outcome of two decades

Within close circles of American underground a songwritersingervocalist John Reis is known as a leader of a pretty big amount of different bands. In late 80's he was heading a post-hardcore band Pitchfork. In early 90's he formed a post-punk project called Drive Like Jehu. A little bit later he created his most popular band Rocket From The Crypt where he was playing punk rock crossbred with rock-n-roll. In late 90's he gave birth to a rock act Hot Snakes and in early 2000's he was noticed as a member of a couple of other bands. The most remarkable fact in this story is that all these bands, excluding the first one, used to exist in one and the same time and each of them achieved its share of recognition on American scene and Rocket From The Crypt even went up to the international level. However, in the long run all these projects broke up by the year of 2007, the reasons remain unknown but Reis just couldn't sit there doing nothing. It took him less than a year to write a brand-new material and to record a debut album of his new band The Night Marchers.

Punk Not Dead

It must be said at once that The Night Marchers is not a one-man band of course. The line up includes ex-members of Hot Snakes Gar Wood (guitar) and Jason Kourkounis (drums) and also a bassist of Canadian punk rock act CPC Gangbangs Tommy Kitsos. For the most part the material of their debut record See You In Magic sounds similar with Reis' previous projects and as a mater of fact is a sort of a mixture of hard-rock and garage punk. The guitars clank, drums rumble and choral backing vocals give a random support to Reis' harsh singing. In a word – punk not dead! But don't be skeptical about this. The album sounds really refreshing and fun. Reis definitely has a knack for making songs with catchy choruses. Thus for instance he combines punk impudence with sufficiently interesting tunes on Bad Bloods and Whose Lady R U and adds a little bit of Emo melodies on And I Keep Holding On. However, the basis of this album lies directly in good old punk rock, it takes only one listen of the very first song Close for Inventory to get it.

The Night Marchers know what they are capable of

The production work of See You In Magic completely corresponds with the spirits of the material. The guitars sound quite dirty, drums look completely unvarnished, especially cymbals, but in the general mix everything sounds legibly and clearly. The overall picture looks as if the band wanted to have the sound of a true garage band and tried to worsen it on purpose, however it also seems that they didn't try too much to achieve it. In fact, the essence of this record is a free and easy approach to everything. The album carries no traits of boredom, neither in delivery nor in the material itself. Most likely it is their great musical experience to blame. They know what they are capable of and they know where they are going. As a result they made a confident, solid, pushing and interesting punk album. One can fearlessly say that all the fans of this genre will gladly embrace it. There are not so many albums of this kind nowadays therefore its value grows three times bigger.

Leo Chevsky

22.05.2008

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