To say ‘Hope Gets Harder’, the latest single from Durham favourites Martha, lands at a fitting moment might be to state the obvious. Taken from Please Don’t Take Me Back, a brand new full-length album coming soon on Specialist Subject Records and Dirtnap Records, the song is born into a week where unelected libertarians chose to start several new fires while pouring fuel on the those already burning. Where the usual suspects undoubtedly sharpened their knives for the inevitable carve up to come down the line. And, in opposition, cash-for-honours Blairites responded with the message that “Thatcherites are safe to come home to the Labour Party.” Not to mention the fascists are back in Italy, Pakistan remains underwater, and hurricanes (or almost-hurricanes) are getting as far north as Canada.
But maybe it’s not surprising. Maybe the real challenge would have been for Martha to find a week where things weren’t falling apart. After all, timing the release of pessimistic songs these days is as easy as putting out Christmas hits in a year of Decembers. “Everyday the hope gets harder,” as the song begins. “Where do you get yours?”
With its image of crematorium towns, drink and pills and omnipresent damp, ‘Hope Gets Harder’ offers no direct answer to the question. Rather it relies on the only thing many of us have remaining. Irrepressible anger. A source of heat and noise. “As we lurch violently from one crisis to the next, it feels like the light of any hope for the future is slowly dying,” Martha say. “But we have to try and find hope in one another, and together we have to fight like hell for a more socially and ecologically just world. No fate but what we make for ourselves.”
Check out the video illustrated and animated by Nathan Stephens Griffin below:
Please Don’t Take Me Back is out on the 28th October via Specialist Subject Records and Dirtnap Records and you can pre-order it now from the Martha Bandcamp page. They’re also heading out on a UK tour with bigfatbig—THE DARKEST TIMELINE DISCO TOUR 2022—and you can find the dates below.
18/11 – Nottingham, Metronome
19/11 – London, EartH – Main Hall
20/11 – Manchester, Rebellion
26/11 – Bristol, Exchange – matinee
26/11 – Bristol, Exchange – evening
27/11 – Leeds, Brudenell
01/12 – Sunderland, Pop Recs
02/12 – Sunderland, Pop Recs
03/12 – Glasgow, Mono
Photo by Victoria Wai