“We all grew up on various strains of guitar music, dance, and hip hop, I guess when you smash all these things together, the common denominator is there’s always gotta be a hard-driving rhythm and a visceral intensity that people can hopefully latch onto–no matter how it’s manifested sonically.”
Michael Lucero
Even though it’s made for and by a generation of genre-agnostic music fans, Read the Air doesn’t deviate from its post-punk sonic palette. And that’s a good thing. Marbled Eye’s influences are there though, and it comes through the punchy drum beats and fills, the drawling depressed vocals, and the spacious, alternately vicious and tinkling guitars and bass.
This is Oakland punk, and it’s been Oakland punk for awhile: Marbled Eye’s quartet is made up of Chris Natividad (also of Public Interest), Michael Lucero, Ronnie Portugal (founder of Digital Regress label), and Alex Shen (founder and manager of the online radio station Lower Grand Radio). Released by Summer Shade and Digital Regress, Read the Air is the second full-length album by Marbled Eye—and it’s one of the tightest punk productions to come out of the Bay this year.
