Huh. It turns out that Cain Marko is the real name of The X-Men’s Juggernaught. You know, the big dude who is pretty much unstoppable and was unconvincingly played by Vinnie Jones a few years back. It’s not exactly the reference I was expecting from the name of a band trading in big, buzzy anthemic punk rock, but then I guess the names of a lot of bands seem pretty weird if you go digging into their backstory.
Improbable superpowers aside, Cain Marko are yet another band who are all about gruffly-sung melodic punk rock with songs about places and people and, of course, drinking. There’s no shortage of bands doing this sort of thing but fortunately Cain Marko are among the more memorable acts doing a similar sort of thing. If you wanted to stick this shit on a scale then they’re no Big Kids, but they’re easily above average.
It’s all about the passion and the hooks, you see. You can’t fake or force passion but you can allow it to seep out of a song’s every pore, and these guys do a decent job with that – take ‘Ralph, I Can’t See’, for example, with the lines “singing songs we meant so god-damn much it hurt” (and less notably, mentions of “wallowing in nostalgia” make me wonder if the song was written for me in my weaker, drunker moments). Lyrically, though, the highlight is ‘I Read This In A Book’, about a guy “working his ass off, spending his money grinding his teeth”. For a song about coke abuse it’s catchy as hell, with loads of lovely octave riffs, stabby rhythms and simple lead licks that dart about in triplets.
The songs I’ve yet to mention open and close this slender EP: ‘At Sea in St. Paul’ has a particularly lush opening melody that lets you know what’re in for, and ‘Let’s Go Kill the Bastard’ has a slightly metalcore/easycore-style riff in the intro before slipping into familiar territory – though it’s also punchy, intense and passionate even compared to what’s come before.
At Sea isn’t going to be featuring on any lists of influential records, but for those with a fire in their heart for these kind of nostalgic punk rock anthems will find room for Cain Marko on their shelves and iPods*.
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* Sorry if you’ve got an Archos or whatever. Are they any good?