On the Rise
Martial Arts

Martial Arts’ debut EP comes from the burnoff. That’s literally its title – From the Burnoff – and its final lyric: “From the burnoff of these years, I’ll grow.”

The five-piece burnt off the last few years by roundhousing the Manchester bar circuit, whittling down their MO, and it led them to a deal with 5dB Records and a partnership with two nurturing producers. Craig Silvey and Dani Bennett Spragg – names such as R.E.M., Portishead, and Florence + The Machine appear on their CVs – helped the band burn off some of their own wastage. 

“When you first set out, the intention is to be as loud and angry as possible, so you end up with everyone over-playing.” That’s Jim Marson, one of two lead vocalists in the band, and one of three guitarists. He remembers Silvey pointing out that “there’s points in the track where everyone’s doing sixteens” – sixteenth note rhythms – “just strumming constantly. We didn’t realise how much mud that creates.” 

A pivot was required to make the most of their three-guitar formation. “Rather than trying to create big dynamics with fancy pedals, it was more about plugging in and being more considered in how you play and getting more dynamics that way, stripping things down to their simplicity,” Marson says of this EP. “There’s still some fat moments,” Matty Pearce – the other frontman – chips in to reassure. 

The opening track has a ‘fat’ moment when everything collides in after the intro. But it doesn’t hit you like a homogenous wall of water, even though they sing “you’ll be swept away.” It’s more like your ears are a backpack bounced between three school bullies (who are really good at guitar). 

The guitar interplay is a big part of Martial Arts’ USP. The parts are carefully latticed together and communicated through boxy, crisp, tube-amp tones. Their playing could sound like old-school Graham Coxon when he’d hopscotch all over the fretboard in ways you couldn’t really comprehend, but it’s not quite that. It’s also not quite the stateside rush of Merge Records alums, likewise inventive and restless, but in a grubbier, grungier way than Coxon’s awkward art-schoolery. There’s some of Bloc Party’s windswept staccato-clean in there, and Squid’s controlled mania, and some pit-ready throat-rippin’ on “The New House”. You might call it red-wall England’s answer to Sonic Youth but without the bullshit. 

Escapism and optimism are conflated in Martial Arts’ sound, they explain, writing with intent for an equitable society. “Especially in Manchester bands, everyone seems to be taking a more positive feel in music. It’s a good way to contrast ideas” – meaning political points with accessible sounds, Marson explains. “It feels like it reaches more people, writing in a way that’s more upbeat. You can get the same ideas across.”

Martial Arts co-founded the community project No Band is An Island with Westside Cowboy and other Manchester acts. Through grassroots gigs and talks, No Band raises money for UK-Med – the humanitarian medical NGO. Recent speakers include reps from nonviolent civil resistance groups like Youth Demand and Take Back Power. There’s even a Green Party partnership in the works. 

“We’re quite lucky that we get to enjoy gigs, and a lot of people don’t, so I think it’s important to acknowledge that,” Marson says. “We’d be doing it anyway” – whether they were in a band or not. “We’ve learnt enough about gigs over the last three years of playing pubs non-stop that we know how to do this. It feels almost like an obligation at this point.”

Direct action politics was something that united the five guys when they met at uni. Besides Marson and Pearce, there’s Tom Dunnell on drums, Robbie Beale on bass, and Jack Brown, the third guitarist. They all hail from different parts of the country, but Brown fell into a Wikipedia rabbit hole one night and discovered they are all linked together by the glassmaking industry in their hometowns: Stourbridge, Sunderland. They’re also linked by their love for that inescapably 2019 brand of itchy-feet post-punk. 

“That was quite a moment for a lot of people our age,” Marson says, pointing to Squid, Fontaines, Shame, and the Murder Capital. The cover art for the EP – a mosh pit immortalised in stained glass – was designed by Aidan Cochrane, who did the covers for some of their favourite records from those bands: Gigi’s Recovery, Skinty Fia. 

“He’d been looking at loads of photos of this thing called Accidental Renaissance, where it’s like beautifully composed pictures, but randomly,” Marson explains. You might have seen these: a strangely arresting snapshot of a bar brawl or a dog taking a dump at sunset. “We wanted something that reflected and felt young but also kind of sacred,” he says. It had to be a mosh pit. 

“We want a live reaction. That was always the thing that we were essentially only bothered about, having a great gig,” Marson says. “We still want to be a live band and improve the shows.” It’s just that they’ve added ‘be a great studio band’ to the list – and subsequently crossed it off.

“We used to come away from shows being like, what the fuck just happened?” Pearce says. “But I feel like that doesn’t really happen anymore, because we’ve got so tight – well, by our standards, tight. Other people may disagree.” 

They’ve levelled up since their first show. That was at The Castle Hotel in Manchester. They’d been barred as punters a few weeks prior, so nerves were high, fearful they’d be yoinked offstage any moment. The fire alarm went off during the set. It was messy. But they recently returned to the venue for a do-over, warming up for this EP in the place they got their start. They revisited their retired debut single, “Warsaw” – because when in Rome – and it clicked in a way they hadn’t expected, wizened by the chops they picked up in the studio. 

There’s an intuitiveness to this stuff, they tell me. When writing parts, it’s as though each member telepathically anticipates what the next is going to play. But telepathy shouldn’t get credit. They’ve spent years synergising each other’s styles through hard graft (and, as Pearce says, if there’s something they don’t agree on, they simply “take our tops off and fight about it” – Martial Arts, innit). 

One section from the EP took a year to nail down: the first half of “Too Much Fun” – the best song here. Marson and Pearce exchange weary laughs when I ask about it. It was worth the effort: the kind of thing you wouldn’t have any idea how to begin writing, as the three guitars cue each other to snake off in different directions. When you’ve got your ear around what one is doing, another usurps it, or a striking interval comes out of nowhere like an anvil plunked down on the pavement in front of you. 

Usually there’s only one possible vocal melody that can dovetail with all of this. Either the guitars have covered everything else, or some higher power intervenes to show them the way. “We’ve got a practice room in Manchester. It sounds kind of awful, but everything bounces around the room loads. I don’t know if it’s the way things echo around the room, but you can hear something, the sound of a voice almost,” Marson explains. “You can hear where the vocal is, calling over top.”

The EP has a soaring finish that echoes on long after it wraps. “I find you in the darkness at noon” it goes, borrowing the title of Arthur Koestler’s anti-totalitarian Second World War novel, a precursor to Orwell’s work. Written in German, the book's original title translates to Solar Eclipse, and Martial Arts’ track is “Pitstop”. There’s a lot of iceberg under the surface that Marson wants people to interpret themselves, but on one level you’ve got the idea of temporariness shared between the two. The novel ends in 1940 – far from the ending we all know. Likewise, while “Pitstop” has the anthemic, pouring-rain feels of a final act, its last line bluntly confirms, “from the burnoff of these years, I’ll grow.” 

“I think the trajectory is upwards. It’s kind of pointless if it isn’t,” Pearce says. Even better material is marinating away, he tells me. For now, the world gets introduced to Martial Arts through five innovative rock songs packed with show-don’t-tell political idealism and masterfully tangled guitars, winding like ivy towards the light.