“In a very small, very particular niche. . . ” but MARTYRS defiant convictions deserve your full attention

WITH delicious traces of Tears For Fears, Suede, and The Blue Nile, MARTYRS present ‘Halloween Dream’ EP, the fifth release in a series of ten from the Merthyr Tydfil and Kent-based duo.

The EP was written, recorded, mixed and home-produced by childhood friends and longtime collaborators Jonathan Howells [music] and Michael Hall [words], their strict DIY approach already producing two albums, 2022’s ‘Un Diavolo In Casa,’ and 2024’s ‘Luminism.’

“We thought we’d release ten singles in about a year but we’re almost a year in and only at the halfway point,” said Hall. “Deciding to make EPs instead of singles and making videos for every song has probably slowed us down a touch.”

Opener ‘Delta Rain’ drifts in with the welcome beauty of a warm, gentle, citrus infused Ibiza evening breeze, before settling into an hypnotic acoustic driven, five-minute slice of heaven on earth.

“’Delta Rain’ is about striving to recapture a very specific feeling when you arrive in a new city, or a new country and it instantly feels like home,” explained Hall. “I wrote the words and filmed parts of the video in Barcelona because it’s that place for me, personally. I feel a sort of homesickness for it when I’m anywhere else.

“There’s something about the sound of an acoustic guitar that makes me want to write more personally, and at the same time more impressionistically. These songs are more vibes-based than I would have expected from us.”

‘October Kind’ and a cover of Super Furry Animals ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fu*k’ round out the EP.

“On ‘October Kind’ I’m trying to paint the intangibles of autumn, how the quality of light, the contrast of cold and warmth, the colours changing around you, can evoke not only nostalgia but also a sense of belonging,” continues Hall. “Halloween is a genuinely magical time, I can’t get enough of the aesthetics of the supernatural and I wanted to express my love for it both through the song and the video. The video is a found- footage journey through Halloween celebrations starting in the 1920s and ending in the modern era. I kinda fell in love with some of these strangers in the film, and it struck me that people celebrating together a century ago looks surprisingly similar to people celebrating now. There’s something unifying in that.”

“’October Kind’ came out of big acoustic folk strums that landed in 7/8, which felt natural for once,” added Howells. “So, I threw the chorus into 5/4. The post- chorus always reminds me of Super Furry Animals, which led to us covering them next.”

“I leaned on Run the Jewels’ Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck) for the repeated “they don’t give a fuck” line – more an instrument than a lyric. The choruses are intentionally overloaded, over a hundred tracks, so what you hear changes with headphones, speakers, or even phone. That chaos felt right. The breakdown with drums, acoustics and church bells has this ominous weight, and it closes with a UK wrestling crowd chanting about an irrelevant political party. It just fit.”

“We’re choosing to make music that needs to be listened to, it’s dense, it’s detailed, it’s specifically not lifestyle or background music,” Hall explained. “That may seem contrary in our current culture but we’re very comfortable being algorithm-unfriendly and asking listeners for their attention.

“Because we barely use social media we’re reliant on independent radio, blogs and word-of-mouth to have our music heard. It means we’re in a very small, very particular niche but we’re happy there. We don’t expect or strive for anything other than to make our art and have a few people connect with it, if we’re lucky.”

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