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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’. As drummer/vocalist Nathan Stephens-Griffin explains:“The entire culture is built around nostalgia, recognisable IPs, rebooting, remaking, re-quelling the past. It's a time where it's extremely easy to despair. Perhaps the worst it's ever been. But the future is unwritten and there's hope in acknowledging that.”
Rising to the challenge of expressing this, the band respond with their strongest collection of songs to date. Running on the poppiest of melodies right out of the gate, opener ‘Beat, Perpetual’ is an anthem for anyone who spent lockdown yearning for the serotonin rush of live music, whether playing, touring, witnessing or simply forming part of its communal rush. As gigs continue their tentative, precarious return, it’s a reminder not to take our most joyous experiences for granted, as well as a celebration of the humble pop song.
From there, lyrical concerns take a darker turn. ‘Hope Gets Harder’ deals with the ongoing psychological battering that many have taken from an increasingly farcical political landscape, as well as its implications for everyday living. ‘Total Cancellation Of The Future’ goes one step further, giving thought to our apparent inability to see a positive version of the days ahead of us, while the album’s title track is a warning about the dangers of looking fondly but selectively upon the past.
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? Stephens-Griffin recollects:
“When it became clear Covid was going to be around for a long time, we decided to try and start again with something new and all started working on new material. In autumn 2020, when the restrictions softened and the local practice room reopened, we decided to start to try and write some new songs. At that point we still weren't seeing our families indoors or even each other indoors, even though we were technically allowed to... but we got together in the practice room with masks, no singing, and took breaks every 15 minutes to recycle the air in the room. This album is what we ended up with from that weird starting point. It was fucking shit not seeing each other, and joyous to be back together practicing.”
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.
Please Don’t Take Me Back sees Martha joining forces with Bristol-based Specialist Subject Records for the first time since their split 7” with Radiator Hospital back in 2015. As Stephens-Griffin explains: “We've known Kay and Andrew for over a decade and they are great people who are consistently doing cool things, and having only ever done one split 7" with them before, we wanted to finally do a Martha album with them. We love that they set up a small DIY label/distro which is now a really established label and physical record shop that is a vital part of the UK punk infrastructure.”
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.
released October 28, 2022
