Martin Grech

Martin Grech, Weapons of Mass Belief at London Camden Barfly, Mon 16 May

Review by Euan McLean

"...Unholy talent is definitely something he has in abundance for an artist of his age, it’s a shame he chooses cloak it with layers of diet-industrial beats and guitars, masking the man behind it all. Once again, we’re left wondering just who Martin Grech is."»

Camden Barfly

Capacity: 200

Nearest tubes: Camden or Chalk Farm Road

The Barfly club used to be at a tiny venue called the Falcon. The Monarch, where it is housed now, isn't an awful lot bigger. Well, the bar is. You will enter a bar and then have to climb some stairs to get to see the bands, so god help you if you're drunk. There is a small bar upstairs too. Be warned: pints cost £3 at the weekend.

Has seen recent secret gigs by JJ72 and Puressence. Also played host to The Barfly Sessions (Channel 4 TV) and Coldplay played among others. Grrrate.

Every small band wants to play here. On a good night, the sound is great and there will be a decent atmosphere. Can get really stuffy and cramped on a busy night though.

You will get your hand stamped with INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH ink when you enter. This will not wash off for at least a week, so you might get away without paying again in that time. ;-)

- Adie Nunn

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Martin Grech

It's always the quiet ones. At 19 years old, Martin Grech does not immediately give the impression of someone who has access to the most intense, beautiful and forward-looking music of the day. To meet him without having heard his music is to encounter a polite, gentle, amused British born teenager, whose only hints of singularity are a predilection for black clothes and a hyperaesthetic sheen to his eyes. All that changes the second you witness Grech fronting his live band. With his guitar slung unfeasibly low and fingers flashing double-jointed over the frets, Grech's astounding rock diva vocals ride the deconstructed metal drama of his live incarnation, and immediately it's apparent that one of the frontier talents of the next guitar band generation has arrived.

In the popular parlance of the day the self-written, guitared, piano'd and sung debut album Open Heart Zoo is a jawdropper. The three-years-in-the-making opus is a magnificent implosion of avant-rock, reaching deep down into hellfire and soaring celestially, frequently at the same time.

Any pessimists still dallying with the notion that rock has nothing left to do in the wake of (depending on your generation) Pink Floyd/Nirvana/Radiohead will have to go into heavy denial to deal with Grech's precocity. In the overlapping emotional textures, the switchback turns from ether to fever, in the dream meets nightmare dissolves, the insistence on mangling, sampling and involuting guitars every way, and in Martin's sublime voice, all the evidence is there that a prodigy's on the rise.

Martin Grech would have probably turned into an inspiring musician at whatever point in history he'd come into the world. Since he was born in 1982, however, and not of a retro inclination, he grew up with the contemporary Gods of experimentation and intensity as a starting point. As the age of 12, living in the 'nice', 'normal' town of Aylesbury, just outside London, he went out and bought Radiohead's 'The Bends'. The casually interested music fan was converted. A guitar and a chord book were immediately obtained and Martin disappeared into his bedroom for the 'chrysalis' phase. Although by no means immediately confident of his voice he at least had the re-assurance that there was music in the family. His mother had been a professional singer doing popular covers (but a really good one), and now the household piano that he'd played around on as a kid loomed much larger. Tentatively Martin began writing songs. An early band was put together from local friends and gradually the songs, which comprise the debut album started to form.

Then the real leap forward occurred when Martin was introduced to producer Andy Ross and, aged 16, while still at school, started heading up to the latter's London studio to work on demos.

The happy circumstance of teaming up with Ross allowed Martin to explore and develop in a conducive environment. Over the three years that they worked together it gradually became apparent that these 'demos' were actually an album. The huge vistas, contrasting moods and, mass of detail within 'Open Heart Zoo' - elements which give a sense of an amazing emotional landscape unfolding - owe a lot to the freedom that Ross and Grech enjoyed.

If Open Heart Zoo is an exorcism Martin Grech should be the most purged man on the planet. The opening trio 'Here It Comes', 'Open Heart Zoo' and 'Dali' cover more ground than many bands manage in a lifetime, moving from dark future rock, through a snowpacked waltz symphony into blasted, cybernetic, teethgrinder metal. Having proved that he's unafraid of the riff, Grech then shifts into a more ethereal mode, with the lilting cradlesong 'Tonight', golden-voiced self-doubt of 'Push' and sweetly chiming 'Only One Listening'. Through the megariffs of 'Notorious', acoustic mantra 'Penicillin', semi-ambient 'Catch Up', the psychotically waltzing sample suite 'Twin', finishing with the keening, diaphanous closing song 'Death Of A Loved One', Grech heads out way beyond obvious rock influences.

As is the way with prodigies, Martin is moving at such a rate that he's already written half of the next album, with probably a couple of offshoot projects and soundtracks composed in his head. He struggles when asked to name the current bands he's impressed by (with the exception of Sigur Ros), but that's most likely because, having leapfrogged a loose expressionist rock lineage that connects the Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Radiohead and Muse (with maybe accidental psychic influence from The Cocteau Twins and Bjork) he's out there on his own. No wonder he's beginning to get the feeling he's wandered into a zoo.

"The Open Heart Zoo thing came from the general feeling of opening up for the first time," explains Martin. "If you do an album and if you're being honest about it, you're putting your whole self on display, even if some people can't read it, you're still on display. At the moment I'm feeling good about it, but its still a bit weird."

It would be no bad idea to have a close look at the deceptively quiet, golden voiced, guitar-melting boy from Aylesbury while the bars still hold him. The rare species tend not to stay caged for long .

Biography from Island Records website »

Weapons of Mass Belief

The Weapons' story starts in the sleepy seaside town of Penarth in Wales, where brother/sister rappers JG and Georgia G grew up. After relocating to London with the band they unleashed their debut single 'Terrorist Youth' to critical acclaim in September 2004.

Salvaging RATM's weapon with the rhyme and giving it a deathly punk rock bite these guys are gonna be big news in 2005.

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