The March Violets :Crocodile Promises
LP|CD|DL
Released: 19th July 2024
The March Violets return with only their third album in 43 years – but it’s quality that counts and they have that in purple spades. Crocodile Promises continues their alternative journey.
The March Violets emerged from the dry ice and shadows of 1981, from a Leeds scene that spawned a devil’s brew of bats and belfry’s that would become known as goth. Goth was a reaction to the horror, paranoia, and the daily threat of nuclear war that hovered over the 1980s that saw seismic political changes that tore the country apart. The Goth kids decided to dance at the funeral, dressing up in a black mix of Hammer Horror and Victoriana, turning the horror into a gothic playground, finding a safe place to be away from the stiffs who thought voting for Thatcher would make them rich, that shoulder pads were the height of fashion and who all spoke some estuary version of valley speak
The March Violets were one of the great slew of bands that crept from this darker side of life and perhaps personified it more than most with their magical pagan symbols and songs like Religious as Hell. Fronted by Si Denbigh (who moonlighted as Doktor Avalance’s nurse for the Sisters Of Mercy) and Rosie Garland (who is also a successful poet and novelist) they released a clutch of perfect 45s including Crow Baby, Snake Dance, Walk Into The Sun and the astonishing Grooving In Green which is an utter classic. On Grooving in Green the lyric says: The last page is missing from the book of her life. And certainly it appeared that way as The March Violets never got around to recording an album, even though John Hughes, the American director with an English music fetish, used their Turn To The Sky single on Some Kind Of Wonderful, before the band folded in 1987.
Fast forward (on an old VHS natch) to 2013 and finally a March Violets album, Made Glorious, saw the dark of the night, and verily it was a glorious return. But things never run smooth with the Violets. The next album project was a mix of revamped versions of old classics and new songs. Mortality was released in 2015 via Pledge just as that website folded, which meant that no physical copies were released, and then Denbigh sadly suffered a stroke.
To most fans this appeared to be the last stake nailed into the heart of darkness, but the Violets aren’t so easily destroyed and with original members Tom Ashton (guitar) and Rosie Garland (vocals) joined by Mat Thorpe (bass and vocals) they are following up successful live dates with a new album.
Crocodile Promises immediately transports you to dark clubs in basements wall deep with black clad denizens. It’s unmistakably the March Violets but reborn and revamped for the modern age. The classic sound is there with the guitars slashing across bass lines that use deep notes accentuated with higher notes that are like fingers down the spine in a horror movie, the relentless drum beats created by a machine and the haunting, transcendent vocals.
Opening with lead off single Hammer The Last Nail, about which Garland states: “There’s no time like now to break free of gaslighting; no time like now to untangle from toxic people. The March Violets are set to Hammer the Last Nail into damaging relationships that keep us in prison”, we get swirling guitars, with a dark carnival feel to it; it’s a barker’s call to come enter the sideshow and see the freaks for your pleasure.
Tracks like Kraken Awakes and World Away From Kind have an epic feel that are subtle enough to stop becoming overblown, the former shot through with psychedelic guitar that hints at the Banshees in their gothic pomp. Bite The Hand, with its machine gun guitar and chanting vocals, and This Way Out have a heavier, urgent pace to them, whilst Virgin Sheep has a funky bass line with the guitar scattering caustic notes like a dum dum bullet exploding on impact. Likewise, the guitar on the melancholic Crocodile Teeth slashes across the driving bass like broken glass. Mortality was originally recorded back in 2017 for the album of the same name. It’s a noir tale set to music with the vocals creating a dream state about the nether world: This is a deep dark world – it speaks to me/This is a deep dark world – mortality. It’s classic Violets and fits in perfectly with the newer material.
There has always been something magical and mysterious about the March Violets and Crocodile Promises continues that tradition. To those in the know the March Violets were one of the greatest bands of the early 80s alternative scene and the current version show they aren’t just a nostalgia act, but can still write great songs. The alternative, darker side of life always exists just around the corner form our sight, in dark doorways leading to cavernous clubs, where the freedom to be yourself and flaunt it is made glorious. The March Violets create music for the demi-monde, located somewhere within the pages of an Isherwood novel, the parchments of The Golden Dawn and a fin de siècle age.
May they play it loud and play it purple for many years to come.
~
You can find The March Violets online here, Bandcamp, Facebook and Instagram.
All words by Mark Ray. More writing by Mark Ray can be found at his author archive. And he can be found on X, Instagram and WordPress
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