Marry Me Tonight is the debut album from Australian band HTRK (pronounced ‘hate rock’) and it bears the stamp and sound of earlier Aussie bands including The Birthday Party which makes sense seeing as Roland S. Howard appears here as player and co-producer.
Marry Me Tonight was recorded in 2006 but “due to a protracted rights dispute” didn’t come out until 2009 on Mute Records’ sub label Blast First Petite whose catalog included Pansonic, Nisennenmondai, and My Disco. The core of HTRK during this time was the trio of Jonnine Standish (vocals, percussion), Sean Stewart (bass, programming), and Nigel Yang (guitar, programming, electronics) who shared songwriting credit, with Rohan Rebeiro (of My Disco) on drums, and Roland S. Howard on guitar and keyboards.
Just like The Birthday Party, HTRK sound convincingly dark and dangerous as if the band emerged/escaped from some secret subterranean home for deviants just long enough to put together 39-minutes of pulsing slow sweaty seductive music before heading back down. Fans of Joy Division should feel at home amid the sparse sound space here driven by bass, searing moody guitar, and Standish’s cooler than caring vocals. Some prefer the band’s later releases like 2014’s Psychic 9–5 Club for its softer sound which I recommend along with Standish’s solo work as Jonnine and her 2024 album Southside Girl.
Originally released on CD, Ghostly International put out an LP of Marry Me Tonight–clear and regular—in 2015 and another LP release last year to celebrate the album’s 15th anniversary so it’s easy to come by the vinyl which I recommend. Fifteen years is a long time in music years and some doesn’t stand up to that span but to my mind Marry Me Tonight feels as dangerously seductive as ever.