Review: Holy Matrimony – Sequence of Secrets

Both Liverpool and Manchester are well known on the music scene for producing some of the most iconic, exciting and popular bands in UK music history. Whether you like them or not, much of the music around these days would never have existed had it not been for bands such as The Beatles, Joy Division, The Stone Roses, The Smiths, OMD and Echo and The Bunnymen paving the way.

Whenever I see those cities named as home towns on a band’s bio, I feel a certain amount of trepidation prior to playing the music – I feel a bit for any new bands or musicians from that area, as they have a lot to live up to!

Introducing Holy Matrimony, new to the music scene this year with an offering of “melodic, electronic pop music” and declaring the three musicians, Jonny, Roger and Jack, to be “elektro-pop muzak visionaries”.

I’ve been able to glean very little information about these guys, and so far they have only made two of their songs public, one of which is a cover of U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Everyone knows how I feel about U2, but I actually quite like this cover as they’ve gone a bit off piste with it, veiling the lyrics with rather lovely guitar & electronic effects, inserted echoes and basically removed all the Bono-ness from the equation. Good effort, lads.

However, I’d prefer to talk about the one original song I’ve heard, entitled “Sequence of Secrets”. There are definite nods to some of the influences the band cites, particularly Depeche Mode and Passion Pit inasmuch as the music is primarily electronic, interspersed with muted and somewhat grunge-like guitars and buoyed by clean, eloquent vocals singing a rousing verse about a confusing yet protective love. The lyrics are beautifully poetic, which isn’t something I say lightly – the voice and the words can very much be make or break for me, and this song has succeeded in winning me over.

“I didn’t know the things I know now with you,
And if I did there’s nothing that I can do,
There are shadows, in the depths of our minds,
And twisting turning lies, oh what am I?
To put all this on you.”

I am looking forward to hearing what Holy Matrimony have got up their sleeves in the future, and will be keeping a close eye on their progress.

You can do the same by following them on Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud and Bandcamp.