Marmozets Return After Eight Years with Brute-Force Heaviness on CO.WAR.DICE.

The gap between Marmozets records stretched eight and a half years, but the band makes no attempt to ease back in. CO.WAR.DICE., their third album, arrives without apology, picking up where the dancier, glitch-edged Knowing What You Know Now left off in 2018. Vocalist Becca Bottomley and guitarist Jack Bottomley married in 2022, and their partnership surfaces across the record, though not in ways that slow the pace.

Opener “A Kiss From A Mother” runs on a false title: no tenderness, just a pulsing beat and a direct hit to the jaw. The track dissolves any concern that time off dulled the band’s instincts. “New York” follows, a love letter to the city’s sleepless life and binge-drinking possibilities, held together by massive power chords and a drum pattern designed for 3 a.m. pavement. The album succeeds most when it commits fully to this kind of brute-force hedonism, as on “Like Last Night,” where a storming breakbeat could stand in for a defibrillator.

The softer moments are less certain. “Dandy” works beautifully—acoustic guitar, distant synths, Bottomley’s angelic vocal creating genuine ebb and flow. But a few other attempts at a lower volume feel unfinished, suggesting the band hasn’t yet defined what quiet means for them. Still, the core of CO.WAR.DICE. is a band older, tighter, and uninterested in hangover realism. When Marmozets play at full intensity, the excitement is direct and the energy undimmed.