The foundation of the music on MARIONETTES is an ironclad dedication to the punk rock ethos, abandoning all pose and pretense. Cutting away the layers of record industry tricks and simply firing from the gut... instinctual and direct. No handclapped choruses or metal riffs lifted from the bloated dead body of corporate rock. When the long night of television bands feeding on their own entrails has at last come to a merciful close and the public castsoff childish musical fads, maybe they will be ready for CLAIR DE LUNE's unrelenting concoction of intelligence and passion. Singles charts be damned, this posthardcore music from the heartland is as punishing and unrelenting as it is melodic. From the first blistering track, Sailor Beware, the boundaries of modern hardcore are shattered. On songs like the unforgettable Relapse, a wall of crashing guitars and flailing drums suddenly gives way to elegiac passages of delicate beauty. Where muscle can't prevail, reason and pathos combine to chilling effect, as in Life On Remote. From the selfaccusatory Machinegun Lipstick, to the boiling insecurity of Blue Ribbon, Marionettes is like a trip to both the psychiatrist's and electric chair all in one. CDL reveal things that are visible to all, yet are only an abstraction, the reflected image of something more primal, encompassing and eternal. With Clair De Lune anything is possible. Lights out.