Marked Men “Ghosts”
“Blurring the rawness and velocity of their self-titled debut with the slightly more developed songwriting “chops” of the last two, the Marked Men have truly delivered the best of both worlds. Since their debut album came out on Rip Off in 2002 (reissued in 2008 on Dirtnap!), the Marked Men have established themselves as one of the best, most distinctive, compelling, and instantly recognizable punk bands of the 2000’s. They’re also quickly becoming one of the more influential. Despite that, you can pop the needle on “Ghosts” for 5 seconds and instantly be left without a doubt as to whom you are listening. It ain’t pop-punk. It ain’t power-pop. It ain’t KBD or ’77 style punk. At this point, the Marked Men sound like absolutely no one but themselves. The bad news is that this will be their last album for a couple of years, as co-lead vocalist/guitarist/total musical genius Jeff Burke is currently living in Japan. The good news is that the band swears they are NOT broken up, just on extended hiatus. We couldn’t possibly be more honored that the Marked Men saw fit to return to our humble label, and are looking forward to doing more stuff with them (and hopefully their new, as yet unformed bands) in the coming years!”