The Chronicles of Marnia

This is a record that fans of Juliana Hatfield, Lightning Bolt or King Crimson could fall in love without compromise. [No. 96, p.60]

These on-record musings never reveal the off-record Marnie, which is a shame, but the sprawling, chimerical Marnia brings you close enough to be captivating anyhow.

She sounds like she’s rediscovering the thrill of making music, and a nervy triumph pervades.

On Marnie Stern’s fourth album, her guitar playing is as grand as her self-doubt, yet The Chronicles of Marnia is Stern’s most buoyant work.

Every weird twist and turn on The Chronicles of Marnia sounds like the work of a musician so effortlessly absorbed in her craft, so attuned to the expressive qualities of her music, that the internal logic of her songs is completely cohesive and idiosyncratic--and more importantly, really damn fun.

Marnia tones down the more extreme histrionics that made earlier albums and acquired taste. [May 2013, p.78]

Here she sounds more polished and pop-friendly than ever, largely thanks to some new additions and some smart subtractions.

This is joyous, hurtling guitar glory--Stern's brilliant paean to survival.

Marnia isn't the single touch that shatters, it's the long, steady stare that gives way to embrace.

Whether she’s playing loser or victor, the swathes of frenetic energy that buoy every note are always present.

The way Marnie plays is fresh, but she does hold true to some central tenets of rock’n’roll in her fizzing songs: invincibility and defiance.

At just over half an hour, it’s a short, sharp shock to the system which contains some of Stern’s best songs to date.

There's something exhilarating in listening to her think out loud--the sureness of her songwriting battling the part of her brain that knows the song will never be enough.

It's loveable, thrilling and properly innovative.

Fortunately, the contents don’t disappoint.

More than its predecessors, Marnia exists as a kind of safe place, a forum where Stern can confront her deepest anxieties and most crippling self-doubts and always come out on top.

It’s a pretty relentlessly upbeat, pacey affair that could do with stripping things back (as it does a little, to great success, on ‘East Side Glory’) a tad more often--but not many.

Fans of Marnie’s music are fully aware of what an album of hers going to bring, and on The Chronicles of Marnia, she brings it.

Not so much a change of pace as a consolidation and careful re-allotment of her powers.

This New York singer-guitarist's records keep getting more nuanced and revealing, without losing a hint of the radiantly hyper finger-picking energy.

It feels a bit like a back-to-the-well move Stern is outgrowing, or has outgrown, so while it still scratches the guitar theatrics itch, the songs around those finger taps more often than not feel like they’ve outgrown that kind of easy attention.

Few other genres give you the same sort of opportunity to be so detailed and nuanced while simultaneously making a grander point about the state of your world and what's to come. It's a balance Stern shoots for in all her albums, but it's especially pronounced on Marnia, which finds her broadening her sonic palette beyond the hyper-precise, finger-tapping riffs for which she's best known.

The Chronicles of Marnia is her most accessible effort to date.

Having slowed down five per cent, you could imagine The Chronicles of Marnia appealing to anyone who liked Sleater Kinney, or Battles, Dutch Uncles, or even Foals, without having the acquired taste for bands as squirky as Deerhoof or Ponytail.

Marnia, a fantasy as daunting as it is revelatory.

On her fourth album, inventive and demented singer/songwriter/guitar hero Marnie Stern whips up a potent batch of quirky, invigorating and, at times, beautiful new material.

She plainly knows the meaning and benefit of brevity. [Apr 2013, p.110]

The Chronicles Of Marnia is chock full of these reminders of Stern’s instrumental dexterity and flawlessly meticulous execution, but without the intense theatrics, flair, and helter-skelter points of tension and release, it never quite transcends into the thrilling mess that is such a good vehicle for her talents.