The album was recorded in the band's studio in Elephant and Castle and throught its 41 minutes pays tribute to the area, including the album cover being of the Michael Faraday Memorial that is near the studio. Marks to Prove It, took two and half years to complete, this album is an amalgamation of the Maccabees' previous slush indie pop sound – from Colour It In and then the stronger Wall of Arms – and the sailing, mystifying and altogether more layered sound of Given to the Wild.
The
product of such a combination has left a suite painted
seriously with concerns of texture, pace and maturity; it was an album that
took us out at twilight, throws us into the depths of the night with
all its endeavours and its heartbreaks, and then hails us the night-bus
all the way back until dawn and its insight.
From the opener "Marks to Prove It", placed the listener up for a teethgrittingly fast ride; jagged guitars and staccato piano keys bounce
around, while the sound clutches at the seams of the record as it
cascades forward into the body of the album; the album had nothing of its predecessors,
and this song was nothing like its forbearers. Influenced by the
beginnings of gentrification of the transport system at Elephant &
Castle – the roundabout of which is adorned on the album cover – the
album addresses the more matured outlooks upon themes such as love and
its loss, the quiet inevitability of the passing of age and time; it
monopolizes the grasping but not quite reaching of something to hold
onto whilst everything changes, and this era silently moves into the
next.
Other remarkable tracks were "Kamakura" explosive choruses that gave sense to its sound of easy rhythm, "Ribbon Road" was another genius cut, "WWI Portraits" was inspired y the Imperial War Museum located in the surrounded areas of Elephant, then "Spit it Out" showed a powerful face of the band,
The album was mature in both its sound and its lyricism. The Maccabees wandered into unknown territory with touches of jazz and blues from a brass addition, quasi-militant waltzes and discordant layering, as well as the addition of quieter piano-centred tracks like in "Pioneering Systems". There too were switched up vocals, with Hugo sang on "Silence" and lyrics recorded in one take on "Dawn Chorus". There was something distinctly raw, dark and slightly violent on the edges of even the most beautiful moments in the work; a deft and swift sadness shakes all the songs.
Looking at the back catalogue of albums from the Maccabees was reminiscent of reading old private diaries; observing as the personal outlooks upon life progress all the way from boyhood through adolescence to manhood. Then Marks to Prove It is the musings of men in their late twenties, not the. It was a testament to the war wounds and love wounds inflicted over the years; the insight that experience gives; the heartbreak of time. In it, romanticising has been firmly moved aside, gentrification has been reacted to by resolute solidarity of men against change.
