Describing the motivation for his project Marching Church, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt wrote, "I had a picture in my head of me in a comfortable chair, adorned in a golden robe, leading a band while a girl kept pouring me champagne. ‘What would this picture sound like?’ was the question." Judging from that image, you wouldn't be faulted for assuming the band's debut, This World Is Not Enough, may end up being the unintentional comedy album of the year, but looking at Rønnenfelt’s track record, it's worth indulging him for a quick minute.
As the frontman for Iceage, he’s carried the Danish punk firebrands across three good-to-great albums, from the wild-eyed pummel of New Brigade through last year’s curveball Plowing Into the Field of Love, which offered country-informed punk rave-ups as well as desperately drunken ballads, all with uncommonly successful results. Now with Marching Church, which has been around in some capacity since 2010, Rønnenfelt seems to be doubling down on Field of Love’s risk-taking, enlisting members of Lower, Puce Mary, and others for an improvisational avant-garde LP that stretches the boundaries of the soul recordings (James Brown, Sam Cooke) that inspired it.
How you approach This World Is Not Enough, and how patient a listener you consider yourself to be, will factor heavily in your enjoyment of it. "Well I’m still being convinced that I contain some kind of godlike charm," Rønnenfelt croaks over the rapture-heralding drums and slashing guitars of opener "Living In Doubt", and it's often hard to disagree with him. As on Field of Love, he cuts a striking figure, a confident but conflicted young man who rambles like a junior year philosophy major in the throes of a fever dream. And while his rakish sexuality and winking sense of humor are on display once again, this time he seems to have crawled a little too far into his own head.
He holds off for approximately two songs—including the great, sax-laden "King of Song", which kind of sounds like "Sympathy for the Devil" as performed by people who’ve never actually heard "Sympathy for the Devil"—before going off-the-rails. So, just as quickly as things seem to be shaping up for This World Is Not Enough, "Hungry for Love"—a seven minute panic attack of clattering cymbals, strained strings, and Rønnenfelt's trademark mad spouting—rears its head. It’s fascinating but also purposefully repellent, a moment when the idea of self-indulgence threatens to mutate into a wildly pretentious guilty pleasure. From here on, the record follows "Hungry for Love"’s lead, and it never quite finds its way back.
And yet, This World Is Not Enough displays little moments of greatness amid the chaos and confusion. You’ll have to wade through almost five soupy minutes of rusty bells, anguished moaning, and hovering guitars on "Your Father’s Eyes" before being rewarded with a soulful, horn-assisted death waltz, though it’s a nice reward anyway. But, all said, there’s just too much wide open space to fill here, and especially on the album’s draggy back half, it’s fairly clear that Rønnenfelt and company have absolutely no idea what to fill it with, but decide to try anyways.
This usually means more shapeless, frequently unpleasantly calamitous dicking around from the players, and more moaning from Rønnenfelt. (It can also mean a painfully dull cover of the eternal "The Dark End of the Street".) And while he is often quite good at conjuring up vividly disquieting imagery, it’s rarely enough to keep your attention. But somehow, This World Is Not Enough is too cluelessly conceived and sloppily executed to get very mad about it. What is frustrating are the infrequent but genuinely interesting moments of creativity and cohesion, which suggest that if Marching Church had taken their time and laid off the improv a little, there might have been something special here.
