As we approach the end of 2025, a year that exacerbated the descent into the hellscape dystopian world, the overwhelming feeling coming off anyone with a social conscience is anger. However, it depends on how you use that anger. Blind rage, violence, ill-advised bouts of vitriol aimed at all and sundry won’t get us anywhere. As cathartic as it can immediately feel.
Bored Marsh sound angry. Yet, it’s a euphoric fury. It’s a party like there’s no tomorrow atmosphere. Dancing among the fires, the burning cities, the riots, the smouldering embers of a St George Cross, the broken glass, the tears and frustration.
This, their second EP, following on from Idiot EP, thematically hasn’t changed a huge amount, but then nothing has improved. If anything, it’s gotten much, much worse. One of the most immediately engaging things about them is Joe Need’s soaring vocals, but we don’t hear a note from his pipes for five minutes.
This five-track record starts with the instrumental ‘Plastic Bag’, which appears both alien to the Bored Marsh sound and a natural step in their evolution. It’s like OK Computer merging into Kid A. Synth and 80’s chorus-heavy keys dapple and dance like rain on an empty street before there’s an explosion of guitar like a joyriding car firing through a barricade, and ‘To Have And To Hold’. The guitar hook is a siren in the dark, coupled with the bass line, a laser firing into the night, the drums are footsoldier boots on tarmac, the whole is a dystopian future Sin City soundtrack.
‘Tonight!’ is more angular, jittery, twitchy. We’ll set aside any obvious comparisons as there is a heft and fire to it that weighs heavily on your shoulders, like they are passing it on to you. Which is then lifted by ‘The World In Your View” which has the biggest and heart-swelling chorus you’ll hear this year. “And I can’t reason with you/You see the world in your view/But if only you knew/They lied/You keep believing their hate/Fuels their personal gain/It’s always us that pays/They want it this way/I can’t stand your reasons/And you don’t know the detail”. A truly magnificent cacophony of noise.
‘DoGooder‘ is the titular last track and last single, and ties the EP up on an optimistic note. Or so it at first appears. The lyrics almost suggest that being the Good Samaritan is a thankless task. The Dogooder with “palms peeling from crawling on all fours” and ‘you feed me to the wolves”.
The more Bored Marsh uses their songwriting muscle, the more it is strengthened and grows and improves. This is up another level. You wonder what they could do with a full LP.
The world may be burning, but out of adversity, out of anger and despair comes the best art. They are painting quite the picture.
