Weekend Intermission – Luna Marble (UK) – The Ride (single/future album track)

Weekend Intermission is our regular feature where we look at an artist or band not from the Nordic countries, just to mix things up a bit.

A few weeks back we featured Issy Sutcliffe, a Manchester-based rocker and out of that came an approach from Luna Marble, from the same city,to review their latest single, ‘The Ride’, which will also appear on their debut album in 2025.

Describing themselves as “a four- piece female fronted independent classic rock band inspired by the blues and psychedelia from the 70s”, they see their songs as “supercharged stadium ready tunes with ethereal textures taking this well loved genre into our own territory”.

The female fronter by the way is Maria, from Spain and she is also El Supremo for the band. Hola, Maria. Puedo hablar español, veo Benidorm en la televisión.

There’s also a Dragos, the guitarist, but I don’t thinks he’s Spanish. In any case they are the two founding members, who started jamming together during the pandemic, later joined by David on bass guitar and Sean behind the kit.

“Stadium ready.” Now that’s quite a claim to make but I’m always keen to listen to anyone who thinks they are capable of filling one.

And to be fair to them they are pretty accurate on all counts. Nostalgia trips to this era and these genres are often fraught with danger. There were all manner of top class blues and psych bands at the time that are remembered well to this day to be adversely compared with but negativity doesn’t come into the conversation at all with Luna Marble.

You can close your eyes and genuinely believe you’ve been transported back to the late 60s and 70s.

As it starts off I thought I might be listening to a track from Cream that didn’t make it to one of their short fast run of albums. And that guitar riff. You feel like you’ve heard it before but you can’t place it.

This baby rocks and when Maria comes to the table, the dear departed Janis would have sat up and paid attention intently. This girl can sing the blues, take it from me. She’s part Janis and part Elkie Brooks.

The irony I guess is that few of their supporters will know what I’m talking about.

But they will when I liken her stage presence (albeit from watching one video) to Abigail Morris.

And to cap it there’s a short guitar break mid-section that might have been heard resounding around Monterrey Pop or the Isle of Wight, all those years ago.

Lyrically, the song concerns the flowing ‘river of life’, with all its twists and turns and waterfalls and white water rapids. The best you can do is strap yourself in and enjoy ‘The Ride’, ‘coz there ain’t no-one gonna save ya.

Coincidentally I was only this afternoon watching Nightwish perform ‘Last Ride of the Day’ at the Wacken Open Air Festival in 2015, a song with a similar theme. There is little comparison between the two musically; that song is symphonic metal, but it has become a classic.

It is too early yet for this short number from Luna Marble to reach that status but don’t bet against them achieving it one day. It just requires some successful navigating.

In the meantime they might think about checking out availability at The Etihad for next summer.

Find them on:

Website: https://www.lunamarbleband.com/