TRACK REVIEW: MARINA - Purge the Poison

TRACK REVIEW:

MARINA

PHOTO CREDIT: Zoey Grossman

Purge the Poison

8.8/10

The track, Purge the Poison, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5u3kP85LYI

GENRES:

Indie Pop/Art Pop

ORIGIN:

Brecknockshire, Wales

RELEASE DATE:

14th April, 2021

LABEL:

Atlantic Recording Corporation

The album, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, is available from 11th June, 2021. Pre-order here:

https://shop.marinaofficial.co.uk/uk/ancient-dreams-in-a-modern-land-collectors-bundle.html

PRODUCERS:

Jennifer Decilveo/MARINA

TRACKLIST:

Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land

Venus Fly Trap

Man's World

Purge the Poison

Highly Emotional People

New America

Pandora's Box

I Love You But I Love Me More

Flowers

Goodbye

__________

BEFORE coming to review…

the new single from MARINA, Purge the Poison, I want to work my way forward (from her earliest moments). Her new album, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, is out on 11th June. It promising to be among her best albums. I think that MARINA (Welsh-born Marina Diamandis) is an artist who has evolved since her debut, 2010’s The Family Jewels . She continues to evolve and change. Following the release of her fourth album, LOVE + FEAR, in 2019, MARINA undertook a multi-leg tour and released a companion E.P., LOVE + FEAR (Acoustic). She began work on a fifth studio album, confirming her plans via an Instagram post in January 2020. The news was followed up by the release of the soundtrack single, About Love, in February - which was featured on the soundtrack to the American romantic comedy film, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020). It has been a very busy past year or so for MARINA. Before coming to her recent material, I want to take things right back to her life pre-music. In this interview from The Independent in 2005, we discover more about Diamandis before she became Marina and the Diamonds – her stage name before she simply became MARINA:

“In 2005, she had just returned to her home town in Wales after studying in Greece (her mother is Welsh and her father is Greek) and was “obsessed with becoming a singer, almost as if it was a disease.”

She worked in a petrol station for two months to save up enough cash to move to London and once there she put herself forward for lots of auditions, including one for a reggae boy-band advertised in The Stage which was held at a record label’s offices. She went and left a letter with the security guard, which made its way to the A&R team and she got a meeting out of it.

“It’s a very old-school way of doing it but I was really determined,” she says. It was only her first week in town, and even though the meeting didn’t lead to anything, it made Marina feel that becoming a pop star was an achievable goal. “I was like, ‘I can do this’,” she laughs.

The only problem was she didn’t have any material. “I had more the desire than the confidence,” she admits, “but I always loved words and I loved writing at school, so the actual lyrical side of it made sense, it’s just I didn’t really sing,” she says.

She started songwriting and going to open-mic nights. It took about four years to be signed by her current label, Atlantic. “But I needed that time to grow and write and establish what I wanted to do,” she says, “because I came with absolutely nothing”.

Though I like her 2015 album, Froot, it was a bit of a watershed moment where things changed. I am not sure whether it was the intensity of recording and touring that album, or a natural result of having performed and played for many years. Regardless, she did have this realisation when it became clear that music was not that important (at the time) – or that it was not that fulfilling for Diamandis. In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, the songwriter explained why things needed to change after she wrapped touring the Froot album:

“After she wrapped her tour for 2015’s Froot, Marina Diamandis — the Welsh pop star who once performed as Marina and the Diamonds — believed she was ready to quit music altogether.

“I felt like Marina and the Diamonds had just become this shell and I was trying to break free of it,” the 33-year-old says, sitting on a couch in Atlantic Records’ New York office. “I just felt completely blocked. It was easier for me to just stop being an artist, which wasn’t the right solution.”

She began taking acting classes, which turned out to be a bad move since she was “accessing that same emotional space that was already dead.” But during her second year away, she pivoted completely: The then–ex musician enrolled at the University of London and took two psychology modules for a period six months. Three months after she completed the courses, which focused on attachment theory, she was back to songwriting.

Now, Diamandis has returned with a shortened stage name — just Marina now — and a new double album, Love + Fear. While her actual studies proved enlightening, it was the experience of being in a university setting that offered the real inspiration. During her music days, she had craved normalcy, feeling suffocated by the limited world entertainers often find themselves in. At the university, she was thrust into a place where “you’re all equal and all different ages and different backgrounds.” The experience was freeing, especially in contrast with her hectic 2010 breakthrough years, an era that saw Marina move from New Wave to full-blown pop on 2012’s Electra Heart.

“I think what happens with most artists who have been around for a long time is that your artistic identity becomes a construct just from the fact that people know you,” Diamandis reflects, noting that the motivations she struggled with when attempting to quit were ego-driven. “I don’t care about being a star or ‘idol.’ I love connecting with humans through music. With pop, a lot of stuff gets caught up in that message, so perhaps subconsciously I’ve made [this album] simple and direct because that’s just how I feel.”

As she’s been getting back into the swing of being an artist again, Diamandis has felt free of the tension that bogged her down during the Froot era. She feels excited about the prospect of releasing music at her leisure instead of waiting for a new album cycle, and even though she misses being in school, the break made her finally appreciate the fact that she can comfortably leave and return to music as often as she wants. But don’t expect her to take another lengthy hiatus any time soon. Now that the floodgates are open, she can’t help but continue to plan for more projects beyond Love + Fear, like her dream of writing a song for a movie”.

Many people fondly remember when MARINA was Marina and the Diamonds. Like Florence and her Machine, the ‘Diamonds’ part, I guess, signified her fans: a precious commodity and supportive army. Even though she has shortened her name to MARINA, the fact that it is in capitals means there is an urgency and intent. I want to bring in a Dazed interview, where MARINA discussed the name change. We also get a glimpse of how a fantastic artist arrived in music, and how she has progressed since her debut:

“To kickstart a new era, she’s swapped her ‘Marina and the Diamonds’ moniker to release music simply as ‘Marina’ instead. It’s taken her a serious dose of contemplation to reach that point, though, and it’s not without some repercussions. Her name change was quietly announced on Twitter back in 2018, and it threw her ‘Diamonds’ (the nickname she gives to her fans) into a frenzy. It wasn’t an attack on them – they’d simply misread her motive. “It took me well over a year to figure out that a lot of my identity was tied up in who I was as an artist,” she says of her new name, “and there wasn’t much left of who I was.” And so, the effervescent project transformed into something more simple.

But how does someone who’s fallen out of love with the very thing that once brought them joy find a way to adore it again? In Diamandis’s case, she had to learn how to be herself.

2008, when Diamandis first arrived, was a transitional year for chart pop. As major label behemoths took a year off (Beyoncé’s I Am… Sasha Fierce aside), the space was opened up to more low-key singer-songwriters like Adele and Duffy. That polite period gave the Myspace rebels of the new millennia the chance to grab their moment. And so Diamandis, alongside the likes of La Roux and Florence + the Machine, burst into clubs and open mic nights across London, lapping up label interest in the process. Together, they proved that the public were more than willing to invest in ambitious, off-kilter pop stars who weren’t afraid to write risk-taking songs.

Marina’s debut LP The Family Jewels, released in 2010, rode that wave: it was a freakish collection of jangly piano pop that dissected the fickle conventions of fame and success she never wanted to submit to. “I listened to it again about four months ago and realised it was absolutely batshit crazy!” she laughs now. It was a critical and commercial success, but fearing that the shelf life was short for an anomalous pop star like her, she was pushed towards a more chart-friendly sound for its follow-up. After plenty of bartering from label bosses, Diamandis warmed to the idea – but only if she could do it on her own terms.

2012’s Electra Heart was a thundering electro-pop record produced by Stargate, Diplo, and Dr Luke (before the allegations of abuse came to light) that felt more in line with the sounds of the time. It was a sonic shock for fans at first (although its first promotional single, “Radioactive”, remains one of Diamandis’s most underrated bangers), but instead of sounding like a facsimile of every other chart topper about, Diamandis used the medium to create a subversive, satirical narrative about a female Hollywood archetype. “I feel like I kind of used that mode of expression to explore my identity, because it was so shaky in my early 20s,” she reflects now. It worked: Electra Heart became her first UK number one album, and is now certified gold”.

To do a bit of a shift, mental-health is a subject that MARINA has introduced into interviews. Now, quite a few artists are discussing the subject. It is still fairly difficult and, in some ways, there is this sense of taboo. Back in 2017, there were relatively few artists who were highlighting their struggle with mental-health and sharing it with the wider world. Coming back to that Dazed interview, and a very special and inspirational project was highlighted:

“Away from the rigid structure of the album cycle, in early 2017 she started MarinaBook: a project that saw her channel the emotion that once went into her music into blogs about her encounters with anxiety, and navigating life as an artist on hiatus. It’s interesting, I say, that her private life is off limits on Instagram, but is dissected in fine detail on that blog, one she updated sporadically before taking a step back at the end of 2017. “I think that’s why I didn’t go back to it, because it freaked me out!” she says, laughing at how nauseous the experience was for her. She sees the long-term benefits of it now, though. Dissecting the human psyche, both within her music and as a person, has always been something that has fascinated her, so much so that she decided to enrol on a psychology course at Birkbeck University in London. For a few months, if you were to wander into the school's library, you could find Marina Diamandis writing essays on modern psychology and theories of personality.

Times have changed now, and a pop star discussing their mental health so openly is no longer such a taboo subject, but is Diamandis, who rose to fame before this transitional period in pop, comfortable with talking publicly about therapy? “I think so, because I just told you – and we just met!” she grins. “But maybe I wouldn’t have before, because I was always keeping up this perception of an artist that was so narrow. I haven’t done loads of therapy, maybe only two years of it in total, but I, like many in our generation, have had a lot of struggles with my emotional health since I was very young. Perhaps I’ve gravitated towards that subject naturally because I always wanted to solve it.”

“We’re coming into a moment in time when artists are talking about it in real time,” she says. “They will be on tour and say, ‘I’m feeling awful at the moment’, which I would have never have done during Froot. I didn’t feel well at all on that tour.” It wasn’t the critical reception it received, which was glowing, nor the way her fans reacted to it. Instead, “it was to do with family. A relative was really ill, and shortly after that two very dear family members passed away – all in the space of three months. I just felt like I couldn’t cope anymore, but I had a commitment to be on tour. I was on stage every night realising I didn’t want to be looked at, but I couldn’t speak about that publicly because I didn’t want to spoil the illusion for people coming to see you, who’ve paid for a ticket and waited outside”.

I want to swing back to the name change to MARINA and how, even though it was a surface amendment and there was not this massive overhaul, there was actually a sense of rejuvenation that came from it. When promoting 2019’s LOVE + FEAR, MARINA spoke with NYLON. I am not sure whether the relationship described is one she is still in - or it was a previous romance that has ended. It seemed to coincide with the creation of an album that marked a sea change for the Welsh-born star:

“Once Diamandis found herself in a healthy relationship, however, it was difficult for her to believe it was real. On "Believe In Love," she confronts how her past negative experiences have hindered her ability to trust: "Losing you is what I'm afraid of," she sings before drifting up into her falsetto, repeating an affirmation: "I need to believe, believe in love." Of the song, she says: "I think when you love someone really hard, any kind of attachment fears you've had in the past really come to the surface, and you have to deal with them. [The person you're dating] can only help you so much—you've got to do the work."

And now? This internal work has paid off for Diamandis. "All I can say is, it definitely gets better," she says. "[These fears don't] go away completely, but—I mean, compared to two years ago, I'm so much more stable." On the album's piano-driven closer, "Soft to Be Strong," she sums it all up: "And I guess I've known it all along/ I found out love has to be soft to be strong."

Although Diamandis spends much of Love + Fear grappling with both personal and existential issues—she even questions the meaning of life on "To Be Human" and "Life is Strange"—there are moments of lightness, too. Diamandis actually seems to have the most fun when cutting out toxic relationships. On "No More Suckers," a sassy, sauntering track laced with piano riffs, she chirps: "Put a stop sign up, you're not getting any nearer/ Wave goodbye to the suckers in my rearview mirror." On "Karma," Diamandis shades a nemesis with a delightful I-told-you-so: "I'm like, 'Oh my god, I think it's karma,'" she jabs before a tropical-sounding drop”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Zoey Grossman

To stay on the theme, and there was an interesting revelation from an interview with The Times in 2019. The fact that MARINA was not sure whether her fans would follow her after the name change struck me quite hard when I reads it:

“Some people are lashed to the treadmill, but I’m someone who really needs alone time, and space. Artists can be clever at constructing an image they want the public to see. And that can work for a lifetime for some artists, those who don’t want to show who they really are, or to appear to be human. But that’s quite a rigid way to live your life and, for me, it’s too stressful.” Yet she’s happy to re-enter the fray? “Yes, because it feels so different. I definitely see it all as a ‘process’ now, whereas at the time I was, like, ‘This is my life, my art! I’m so absorbed in it.’”

Diamandis admits to worries about whether her fans (the “diamonds” in her old stage name) will come along for the ride; but, as she points out, they stuck with her through multiple musical metamorphoses, so there’s cause for optimism. And she’s refreshingly unapologetic about striking out in yet another new direction, and baffled by those who are happy to make, or listen to, the same old thing.

“It’s so simplistic. What if you are a flibbertigibbet and want to experiment?” A pause. “There’s your tag — the flibbertigibbet of pop.” Hmm. I think she’s a little deeper and more significant than that.

PHOTO CREDIT: Zoey Grossman

Not only was there a name change for 2019’s LOVE + FEAR; with this, there was a marked style and sonic shift. I said how there was not a big deal about changing her name, though it does appear that there was an internal overhaul and a personal realisation that fed into her music. When speaking with W in 2019, MARINA revealed more about how her music altered with the introduction of her moniker change:

“Marina has, in fact, kept writing, but she placed it on the back burner until recently, when she began compiling her new two-part record Love + Fear, to be released April 26. She eased her way through the process for her fourth studio album during the past two years, ending up with 16 tracks that she absolutely needed to be on it. Soon, she had the idea of splitting up the songs on the record, finding two parallel threads running throughout. “I found was that there were a lot of songs that came from a feeling of joy or love and then there were songs that came from a place of fear,” she says. The idea for the records tie into a theory about love Marina admires from Swiss psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Marina reads a quote from her aloud: “’There are only two emotions love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety, and guilt. It’s true that there are only two primary human emotions, love and fear. But it’s more accurate to say that there is only love or fear. For we cannot feel these two emotions together at exactly the same time. They’re opposites.’” To Marina, it was a revelation: “I thought, That’s the most universal thing that bonds us all.”

As with her stage name, Marina adjusted her vocal approach on Love + Fear. “I feel like it’s coming from a different space in me, and it’s actually the way that I sing, that hasn’t got the tension anymore,” she explains. To her fans’ delight, a promise of new music came last fall with Clean Bandit’s Latin dance-pop anthem “Baby,” which featured Luis Fonsi and Marina. It did, in fact, signal new music to come. Marina shared two ethereal singles since the beginning of 2019, “Handmade Heaven” and “Orange Trees.” “‘Orange Trees’ was inspired by an island I’m from in Greece, and I think that it just came from a similar place to ‘Handmade Heaven’, which is just the longing to feel less dislocated in life,” she says. The island she’s referring to is Lagos, which is as beautiful as you imagine a Greek island to be. As she was about to visit on a sailing holiday, Marina found herself inspired to write about her home. “I wasn’t living a life where the natural world is a big component and that makes me really sad,” she says. Marina was looking to fix that and find where she was comfortable again. “I think I was looking for that reassurance at that time of my life,” she says”.

Many might think that, after quite a transformative and fairly emotional time in her career, the music on LOVE + FEAR was going to be serious and a little lacking in spark. Coming back to the Fader interview and, conversely, this was very much not the case:

“Acknowledging the LP's incredibly simple black and white cover art, she says “[my fans] probably think they’re going to hear this and it’s gonna be my ‘singer-songwriter album.'” In fact, it's the farthest thing from it. Freed of the rigidity that dominated her first three records, LOVE + FEAR is pure fun. Packed with booming synths and exhilarated hooks, it's her most direct electro-pop album to date, from the tropicana bloom of "Orange Trees" to the twisting retribution of "Karma."

The record also offers a tonal shift in narration; for the first time, it sounds like Marina is singing to the listener. "Sit back and enjoy your problems, you don't always have to solve them," she sings. "Your worst days, they are over, so enjoy your life." From any other pop artist, these sentiments may come across as empty platitudes. But from Marina, who’s spent the bulk of her career handwringing songs about insecurities and self doubt, they feel like a sincere reassurance.

“As you get older, there’s less of a need to hone in on anxieties. We don’t have the time to be introspective when there are more important things happening,” she explains. “I feel a desire to put positive things into the world”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lauren Perlstein

Like I did with the topic of mental-health, this slight redirection concerns misogyny that MARINA has experienced in her career. Like many female artists, she has faced discrimination and sexism. MARINA spoke with Vice about the subject of feminism and whether there was a particular incident that sparked this being on her mind and agenda:

“How do you feel now that in the past year to eighteen months feminism has come back on the agenda?

It’s been interesting. Part of me at the beginning felt like, here we go, people hopping onto a trend. But part of me thinks it is for the right reason. The topic is something that needs to be discussed. I definitely feel a shift. As a woman, I think the type of comments that people could make in the past about girls, like jokey, misogynistic comments really don’t fly anymore.

I think a lot of guys are hyper-conscious of being seen as misogynistic now. I’ve definitely noticed that.

Definitely. This next comment isn’t about guys, it’s more about the horrendous explosion of visibility in rape culture in the past few years. It’s a good thing that it’s being exposed. But it’s also grim, because you kind of think, “Is this a part of human nature?” “Savages” is actually about that.

That’s interesting. Was there an incident that sparked this specifically for you?

It was more summing up everything that I’ve been hearing in the news for the past two years. I find it so unnerving, not so much because it was happening, but because it’s natural and that’s what people never talk about.

That’s true.

It’s more about, “How can we solve this problem?” It’s like, how can we discuss that this is an innate human trait? What are you going to do about that? Like, for example, if you’re a pedophile, how about we give them proper support so that they don’t go and rape kids? As opposed to being like, “Oh my God, you’re a pedophile!” What if they were born that way? You know? It’s a really controversial subject. But it’s something that has been going on for thousands of years historically. But that’s just one thing. Rape, again, that has been happening for thousands and thousands of years”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Atlantic Recording Corporation

Coming to the current album from MARINA, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, and it appears like that title refers to her harkening back to a better time. Maybe she wants things to change; there needs to be this cultural transformation and greater sense of awareness. I mention that because, in 2021, women are still hugely under-represented in the studio. A tiny fraction of engineers are women. The problem is not much better when it comes to the production side. When she spoke with Vogue, MARINA explained why she wanted a female production team on her single, A Man’s World:

“Last summer, Marina Diamandis made a callout on her social media for new female collaborators. Tweeting out a set of pink-hued selfies to her 2.6 million followers, the Welsh pop artist formerly known as Marina and the Diamonds wanted to know whom she should be paying attention to as she began to think about her follow-up to 2019’s Love + Fear. “Who are your favourite female producers, writers and artists right now? I’m creating my next project...and this story can only be told by women,” the caption read. “I’m looking for you.”

As the first single off her fifth studio album due later next year, “Man’s World” was written by Diamandis and brought to life by an all-female creative team. Produced by Jenn Decilveo (Bat for Lashes, Hinds) and engineered by Emily Lazar (Sia, Clairo, Haim), the soaring pop anthem has Diamandis declaring, “I don’t wanna live in a man’s world anymore,” against a fluttery mid-tempo beat. It sounds as big as the topics she’s singing about, namely the persecution of women and other minority groups throughout history: “Burnt me at the stake, you thought I was a witch / Centuries ago, now you just call me a bitch.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Atlantic Recording Corporation

There are a lot of songs in your catalogue that are directly sociopolitical, and “Man’s World” reminded me a lot of the way you wrote about rape culture in “Savages.” How do you balance the subject matter of a song like “Man’s World” within a melodic pop structure?

I like building a visual world for the listener to dip into even if the song itself is about a more weighted subject. In terms of what I wanted to convey, I think there’s always been so many different ways to humiliate minority groups in order to stop them from gaining power. For women, that always seems to be by discrediting their work or picking something out about their physical appearance or lifestyle. I see a lot of that as an artist, and I’ve been on the receiving end of that a lot.

Was that part of why you wanted to work with an all-female team on this particular project?

It just felt necessary. I’d been reading this book, If Women Rose Rooted, and just really thinking about women’s stories and how important it is for women to actually tell them. It’s my responsibility to make sure I’m hiring women who represent what I like talking about. “Man’s World” was an opportunity to do that.

How did you link up with Jenn Decilveo as producer?

I was connected to her by my friend Derek Davies at Neon Gold Records. I was looking for a producer and had loved some of her previous work. I’m just lucky it worked out because it’s always a bit of a gamble just going into the studio with someone new. But it was very natural from the start. It was a very instinctive process.

PHOTO CREDIT: Atlantic Recording Corporation

It is quite alarming knowing that there are so few women in the studio. Maybe there is this embedded culture that pushes women away, or there is simply not enough being done to encourage them into positions that are filled by men. In the interview from Vogue, the problem of imbalance in the studio was covered:

“Women currently make up only 2% of producers and 3% of engineers across popular music. Why do you think this industry has been so slow to recognize women behind the scenes?

In my own experience, one of the reasons I think there are so few female producers is because female artists or songwriters don’t get credit. It’s a very interesting thing that I’ve had to navigate. On the first record I got no production credits because I didn’t even think to ask for them, but the fact is that I helped shape every record and I was precious about getting each song to the shape that I wanted it. If I hadn’t been in the room, these records would’ve sounded very different.

I could see the lines getting blurred when there’s enough people in the studio throwing out ideas.

There’s such a blurred line. Obviously you’re hiring a producer, but that doesn’t mean that your contribution is nil. My experience has varied along the way because on the second record I didn’t really have a role in the production since I was working with massive pop producers. You were hiring them to give you something that you thought you couldn’t produce, which was, like, radio hits in America. Then with Froot, I tried to scale it back and coproduce with one guy. But I think a big part of it is women don’t think they have the right to ask for a credit that symbolizes or represents their contribution. It’s up to us to ask for the credit”.

Produced by Jennifer Decilveo (the new album is produced by Decilveo and MARINA), Purge the Poison is only the second single. I guess there will be another single at least before Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land is released in June. It is nice that so few singles have been released from the album, as it means that we have not heard a lot of it so far, and that will also build anticipation. I really like the video for Purge the Poison, as it starts with slightly trippy images of MARINA’s red shoes, before the image sharpens and the heroine, in a yellow and blue stripped top, appears. There is something neon and Disco-like in terms of the imagery and aesthetic of the video. The song itself has a great beat and production. There is a nice riff that gives the track electricity and groove. The first verse contains some very interesting lines: “All my friends are witches and we live in Hollywood/Mystical bitches makin' our own sisterhood/Whilst society is fallin', we are quietly reformin'/Protectin' the planet, healing our own damage/Quarantined, all alone, Mother Nature's on the phone/"What have you been doing? Don't forget, I am your home/Virus come, fires burn, until human beings learn/From every disaster, you are not my master". These are some of the most striking images and lines from MARINA. Highlighting feminism and gender equality in addition to climate change, they are relevant and eye-opening. I like the rhythm of the vocal. It is quite punchy and soulful; there is this flow that keeps you hooked in the moment. In the video, there is a visual change between the first verse and the pre-chorus. In the pre-chorus, there is a return to the red shoes (which look diamond-studded). The images are less clear and have this slightly hazy and blurred quality. Whilst the composition provides levity and a catchy energy, the lyrics remain potent and hugely charged: “Need to purge the poison, show us our humanity/All the bad and good, racism and misogyny/Nothing's hidden anymore, capitalism made us poor/God, forgive America for every single war”.

Again, there is a new visual by the time we get to the chorus. With some nice vocal inflection, MARINA keeps the song both fresh and exciting. At the same time, it is moving and very stirring: “Need to purge the poison from our system/Until human beings listen/Tell me, who'd you think you are?/It's your own decision/But your home is now your prison/You forgot that without me, you won't go far”. Man’s World, the previous single, dealt with the mistreatment of women and L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ individuals throughout history. On Purge the Poison, there is a similar angle regarding the need for change. The second verse brings in a moment(s) in time that I was not expecting to be covered in the song: “2007, when size zero was the rage/Britney shaved her head and all we did was call her crazed/Harvey Weinstein gone to jail, Me Too went on to unveil/Truth and all its glory, the ending of a story”. Keeping the song flowing, I wondered whether a guitar break or a reintroduction to that fierier sound should have been dropped in on a verse that could have benefited from it. Whilst it is a minor point, there is not a lot of compositional diversity and surprise – things remain fairly rigid and similar until the latter moments of the song. That said, Purge the Poison is a song whose strengths lie in the lyrics and vocal performance. In terms of the vocals, they are among MARINA’s very best and most nuanced. The pre-chorus offers up a combination of inspirational motivation and stark warning: “It's a New World Order, everything just falls away/Our life as we knew it now belongs to yesterday/Inside all the love and hate, we can now regenerate/Stop how we'd been livin' every single day”. For the next bridge, the composition is turned down and we get this moment that is more hushed and contemplative.

I guess the entire song has had an element of contemplation but, with very little backing, the bridge seems to offer this very personal and emotive moment: “I just want a world where I can see the feminine/We only make up one quarter of the government/Like an angel gone to hell, cast the moon under our spell/Ownin' female power, takin' back what's ours”. Before you know it, the pre-chorus arrives and, with it, a reversion to that hypnotic and fast-flowing delivery: “Earth is like a white rose, quiet cloud of petals cold/A place so corrupt where angel flesh and blood is sold/The feminine is born as new, studded with a diamond dew/Saw the dawn was comin', everybody knew”. I think that MARINA is a very strong lyricist. It would have been easy to pen some clumsy and slightly cliched lyrics in a song that tackles some very serious subjects. Instead, Purge the Poison has a lot of consistency, weight and memorability. The final chorus offers plenty for us to ponder: “Need to purge the poison from our system/Until human beings listen/Tell me, who'd you think you are?/It's your own decision/But your home is now your prison/You forgot that without me, you won't go far/Need to purge the poison from our system/Until human beings listen/Tell me, who'd you think you are?/It's your own decision/But your home is now your prison/You forgot that without me, you won't go far”. I am looking forward to the release of Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land. I think it will showcase songs as strong as Purge the Poison. It is clear, on this album, that MARINA wants to move away from love and the more personal side of things and tackle larger issues in society – though that is not to say that there will be a complete absence of love/romance themes across Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land. Another terrific cut from the album, I think MARINA will bring in new fans on her highly-anticipated…