Marble Valley - Super Sober

There are a few problems with ‘Super Sober’; the biggest amongst them that the act behind it, Marble Valley are very much a pet project, a leisurely aside, for Steve West (y’know, him out of Pavement). Though that status does afford them a fair bit of room to manoeuvre and experiment, it isn’t really responsible for many successes.

Take ‘Bing Bang Bong’. It’s a 10 second fuck-around, jutting awkwardly from the middle of the EP. Perhaps it can be glossed as whimsical, showing the West’s sense of humour; either that or it exemplifies an act not particularly given to editing itself.

‘Super Sober’ sits a little awkwardly in an environment where weird-rock verges on the mainstream. It’s a little strange (for example, that voice), but it’s simply not strange enough. It’s between two camps. Either it turns to the more obtuse, and embraces its freaky fucked up side, or it gets straight. Otherwise, it’s stuck in the pretty boring middle.

There’s no grasp with Marble Valley. No energy. Obviously, energy (in its pounding, primal sense) is by no means the aim of this EP; still, the blandness of it is striking. Perhaps it’s the messing-about essence, but there just seems to be something missing. There are no rockers, no classics, there’s not much at all, in fact.

Ultimately, ‘Super Sober’ is not particularly emotive. It doesn’t inspire much feeling, nor does it seem to have a tremendous amount behind it. Marble Valley belong jamming in the garage, not making records for borderline sycophantic Pavement completists.