Only rock musicians and lottery winners don’t prepare for success. There’s no worthy handbook on how to do it, no shaman or magician to make it come true, and nobody to really give the hopefuls worthwhile advice.
Every other person who has success prepares for success by going to school, stealing bits and pieces of information from the masters, and planning out their career with lawyers, accountants and advisers. It turns out that making a billion in the business world is much more predictable.
Detroit’s Marcus: the Apex Predator! is an old-school rock act ready to put itself and the emotional well-being of its members on the line for a bit of that unpredictable, fickle magic. “Newborn Fossil” is an EP of post-hardcore and indie sounds that cuts the difference between gentleness and blunt force, between earnest storytelling and abstract poetry.
But the key to its success is that the trio launches itself into the songs enthusiastically and with no roadmap, the way Detroit’s finest bands are known to do.
Take, for example, the EP’s opening number, “Newborn Fossil,” with its chugging riffs and cryptic lines about anger and forces of change. That’s all fine, but what really propels the song forward is the musical interaction between the musician and that unquantifiable natural grit of the vocals.
While deep and often dark emotions accompany many of the songs of the EP, the music in itself is a celebration of the very things that make so many seek out their Saturday night entertainment in the basement of a bar, in front of a stage, listening to people pouring their hearts out over the sound of buzzing amplifiers.
“Lo-Fi” features verses with guitar lines that bring to mind the original math-rock bands and crashing, rousing choruses. And as M:tAP! moves through its story about life’s vital details slowly turning into a blur, it plays with the intensity of an organism fighting to stay alive.
There are glimpses of hope on the anthemic, 90s punk-sounding “The First Summer,” where the singer remembers a time when “every dream feels possible.” And “Plenty & Shine” is just as catchy and defiant in the face of time’s indomitable march.
Where does it all leave us? Spent and looking to do it all over again, hopefully. The dynamic, tom-tom-heavy “No Fraction” closes things off declamation against those who either look to poison us or drag us down. And as the band launches itself into the outro, they’re playing not like trained musicians but like people using all of their energy to fight off some destructive force.
Marcus: the Apex Predator! spares nothing on “Newborn Fossil,” least of all energy. By the sounds of it, there’s plenty that the musicians are fighting. Aren’t we all? But if the songs are an indicator, they’re also not stopping or allowing themselves to become hopeless. It’s a great, modern record!
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