One of the greats

A truly great album, that ought to have propelled Marah to much greater fame. The catch is probably the production and the scatter-gun arrangements, which sometimes sound like there are 15 people banging saucepans in the background (good thing, honestly!). Great songs, dynamic and alive, with occasionally exceptional lyrics. Enormous talent.

Outstanding.

What absolute fun this album is. As much fun to listen to as to dance to. Faraway You and Point Breeze grab you right off, and what a ride it is from the silly My Heart Is..., to the funky intensity of Catfisherman, to the bitter It's Only Money. The last two songs of the album are the weakest, and they're not bad. I just wish they'd tour the southeast, soon.

VERY SPRINGSTEENESQUE

I had never heard of Marah - which sounds like the name of the house band at a Shishkabob joint - until I was intrigued by the title of their "Let's Cut The Crap and Hook Up Later" album. My first impression of that record was that if Bruce Springsteen cut an alt-country album, this is what it would sound like. While promising, I found the record very undisciplined to the point I wouldn't recommend it. On Kids In Philly, Marah really comes into its own. These guys flat out rock, and Round Eye Blues is the most harrowing anti-war song I've ever heard. You can feel the bullets wizzing by. To those who loved Springsteen and the E Street Band in the "Greetings From Asbury Park" days, this band's for you.

Kids in Philly is stunning in its diversity, and even more stunning in its ambition. The album forges its own confident, note-perfect rock & roll sound, while practicing the type of effortless stylistic hopping that hadn’t been executed to such wonderful effect since the heyday of the Fab Four. It is a relentlessly infectious and mature album that displays an uncommon artistic authenticity. You would be hard-pressed to pinpoint Marah’s direct precedents because their music is an entirely singular innovation. There are moments that recall both Bob Dylan (particularly the lyrical insight) and Bruce Springsteen, the roots rock and the white soul of early solo Van Morrison, while “Round Eye Blues” has the same slinky beat that lurks in “Every Breath You Take.” Sonic touchstones pulled from the great eras of rock music’s hallowed past — bone-crunching acoustic guitar runs, punchy soul horns, block-party gospel background vocals, and ever-present banjo — are boldly injected into the songs without reservation, but the album exhibits a vision that is quite personal and entirely unique from anything that came before it. David Bielanko’s smoke colored, wisp-and-whine voice alone is the type of hallmark that is impossible to forget, but more impressive is Marah’s musical invocation of Philadelphia, from the clever lyrical references to Todd Rundgren in “Point Bronze” to the shaggy-eared Philly soul beat of “My Heart Is the Bums on the Street.” The city is not, however, just a colossal sonic influence on the album. Marah is spiritually and psychologically connected to every nook and cranny of its hometown, and Kids in Philly is literally a portrait of and homage to the city in the same way that Hotel California encapsulated mid-’70s Los Angeles. When listening to the album, every street and alley becomes crystal clear due to the band’s mind-boggling lyrical gift. There is a real and complex viewpoint and storytelling acuity running through the album, whether it be the bus ride heartbreak of “Faraway You” or the staggering depth of “Round Eye Blues,” on which a bitter Vietnam veteran tells his tale, an astonishing piece if one stops to consider the observations being spoken actually come from the mouths of twenty-somethings. The album contains one gem after another, and it leaves you feeling like you have just listened to one of those landmark musical achievements. – Stanton Swihart