Album Review: Martha- Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart

Martha

Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart

**** out of *****

The four piece from Northeast England, County Durham specifically, called Martha self describe as vegan, straight edge, and anarchist covering all the modern day punk rock conscientious check boxes. While that is crucial for its vision (and fan identification) what is even more important is that they have delivered a full album of amazingly catchy pop punk with their newest release Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart that once heard will stick with you for a long time.

From the opening notes of "Christine" the group puts the three chord action to work slamming in melodic fashion with guitars and shout along lyrics deftly contributed by both male/female leads adding extra dynamics. The band are Nathan Stephens Griffin on drums, Naomi Griffin on bass, J. Cairns and Daniel Ellis on guitars and cohesively they take pop punk for a dramatic spin in the year 2016.

The upbeat dance infused joy of "Do Whatever" bleeds into the frantic and hip swinging of "Goldman's Detective Agency" that closes with a huge swell that will be crowd surfed and sung along to live. "The Awkward Ones" is another anthem for outsiders that plays with the more radio friendly sides of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" while injecting some cutting guitar work, an album highlight.

The excellent songs keep rolling out though as there isn't a dud in the bunch with "Ice Cream & Sunscreen", "Legless In Brandon" and re all proper tunes that engage the listener after one spin "Curly and Raquel". "Do Nothing" takes a long journey (double the length of any other track here), and while it isn't perfect, this shot at the grandiose suits the group before they close with the sparse strumming of "St Paul's (Westerberg Comprehensive)" name checking one of their replacement heroes while wrapping up a fantastic disk.

If pop punk is a genre you have ever loved give Martha a chance as they have added a real gem to the proceedings with Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart.
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A real cool album, thanks to NPR for showcasing it, and you can stream the whole thing from them (for a limited time) here. Also please support the band and peep some video below: