The Marble Index: Watch Your Candles, Watch Your Knives
By
Evan Sawdey 30 January 2008PopMatters Interviews Editor
If you’re old enough to remember MTV’s 120 Minutes or that moment right after grunge gave way to ‘90s alt-rock (think Everclear minus the angst), then you are required to buy Watch Your Candles, Watch Your Knives, the second album from The Marble Index. Opening with a trio of top-notch riff-rockers where attitude only occasionally dances around with the delirious pop melody, the band harkens back to a day when rock radio wasn’t so full of itself: instant hipster parties beamed straight from your portable CD player. “All That I Know” reminds me of when Nada Surf was a bit more rollicking, “We Always Complain” sounds suspiciously like the Death Cab for Cutie B-side “World Shut Your Mouth”, and the rest remind you of how awesome Imperial Teen were before the Jawbreaker soundtrack hit. Watch Your Candles gets a bit bogged down in the final stretch, and Brad Germain’s world-weary lyrics are both familiar and dull at the same time, but when the band manages to create such a great, spirited rock record like this, who’s one to split hairs?
Evan Sawdey began contributing to PopMatters in late 2005 after contributing for years to his college newspaper
The Knox Student. Evan became the Associate Interviews Editor for PopMatters in the summer of 2008, and then the full Interviews Editor a year after that. Since joining, Evan's work has been quoted/featured in a wide array of publications including SLUG Magazine, The Metro (U.K.), the Gulf Times, Soundvenue Magazine (Denmark), and multiple national newspapers. Evan has been a guest on WNYC's Soundcheck (an NPR affiliate), was the Executive Producer for the
Good With Words: A Tribute to Benjamin Durdle album (available for free at
GoodWithWordsAlbum.com), and wrote the liner notes for the 2011 re-release of
Andre Cymone's hit 1985 album A.C. (Big Break Records) and the 2012 re-releases of
the JoBoxers' 1983 debut album Like Gangbusters,
'Til Tuesday's 1985 debut Voices Carry, and
Plastic Bertrand's 1978 album AN 1 (all Hot Shot Records). He is a current member of The Recording Academy and resides in Chicago, Illinois. You can follow him
@SawdEye should you be so inclined.
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