Chamber-pop for the strange and weary: the march afternoons’ ‘Hi James, my name is also James! Hail Satan!’.

Hi James, my name is also James! Hail Satan! is the curiously-titled second album from the march afternoons, following on from GOOD LUCK FROM BARNARD CASTLE, released just earlier this year. As one might have gleaned from the title, it’s an odyssey into the not-quite-pop, exhibiting the best chamber-pop has to offer.

Hi James, my name is also James! Hail Satan! opens with London, I & II, a two-part track somewhere between elevator music and The Magnetic Fields. Straight away, it’s pop in the broadest sense, refusing to be pigeonholed and with little care for the fact. Tales of the Unexpected, meanwhile, proves a similarly jarring tune with mellow guitar flitting between the left and right channels, building on one of the more beautiful moments in the record. It’s tender, cutting through the tongue-in-cheek pomposity that plagues much of experimental art, instead engaging with the kind of raw emotion that binds us all.

Some Things Last a Long Time (a cover of the excellent Daniel Johnston’s, from his album 1990) is hauntingly poignant, echoing all the longing nuances of the solo work of Lindsey Buckingham whilst remaining profoundly its own. Don’t Panic marks the halfway point of the album, and it couldn’t be a more ethereal – if patchwork – affair. Over the course of Hi James… we switch between bedroom and chamber-pop, ‘insomnia-core’ (to quote the band), piano-driven ballads and reflections from the space between worlds.

CCaRRoLL emphasises this point, referencing the repetitive notes and melodies of late ‘90s jungle, before London, III drifts through, pulsing with synth like some lullaby from a half-forgotten dream. It’s an album that’s tough to put into words, but there’s something magical about that. It isn’t straight-forward pop, rock or indie. It just is. It’s exactly what it wants to be, even if we’re often none the wiser as to what that is.

the march afternoon’s follow-up record is a mere six tracks long. Twenty-one minutes. Yet, through all the sounds this ambitious LP touches on, it holds the richness and depth of something twice its length, without all the tedious filler and pretentious indulgence.

The album is unabashedly its own strange beast, but far from scraped together. Indeed, the record is made all the more magical and idiosyncratic for it, lurking in that ethereal space between genres. Hi James, my name is also James! Hail Satan! isn’t going to be the hot new album of the year, but it’s not designed to be. It’s weird music for weird people, and should it remain an obscure little niche between the cracks of record shelves and Spotify-curated playlists, it’ll be all that more treasured a trove for it.