Three tracks. Fourteen minutes. And a whole lot to think about.
The Church Street EP, released 15th April 2026, is the latest offering from Martyrs, written, recorded, and produced entirely in-house, and it’s a quietly compelling listen that rewards your full attention.
Think Edwin Collins with a softer delivery, hints of Peter Gabriel, the synth-driven undertow of New Order, and the observational storytelling of Billy Joel. It sounds like an eclectic blend on paper, but in practice it coheres beautifully into something distinctly and confidently Martyrs.
‘Church Street’
The title track opens the EP with delicate storytelling, a romance recalled, intense and nostalgic, the kind of first love where ‘only you make sense’. What’s clever here is the contradiction at play; light, almost shimmer-soft vocals set against a heavier emotional undercurrent that belies the weight of the story being told. A synth keyboard gives the track an 80s-tinged backdrop, adding a kind of restless questioning energy to the arrangement. The guitar build during the break is anthemic, almost poetic. And the finish? It fizzles out, reflective of the relationship it’s describing. Very clever.
‘He Breaks Horses’
A complete gear shift. A heavy bass lead drives this one forward with a deeper, more cinematic groove, and with good reason. ‘He Breaks Horses’ draws on the 1831 Merthyr Rising, the radical uprising in Merthyr Tydfil that became one of the most significant moments in Welsh working-class history. There’s something almost filmic about it, images of Welsh hills and castle walls, electric guitar builds that feel like a call to stand and unite, references to the picket line that still resonate today. A fighting song in every sense.
‘Twist The Cap’
A breath, literally, opens the final track, and it signals another complete change of scene. ‘Twist The Cap’ is night-time music; sparse, despairing, and quietly beautiful in the way it captures that particular feeling of not knowing what help is needed, or how to ask for it. For me, it’s the most intimate track on the EP, poetic in its imagery, conversational in its delivery.
That conversational quality runs through the whole EP, actually. Martyrs write in lines rather than conventional lyrical structures, no tidy rhyming couplets here, which gives the music a sense of ongoing dialogue, characters talking to each other and to themselves. Minimal in many ways, but with real space for instrumental accents, vocal depth, and pause for thought.
And if three tracks have left you wanting more? Apparently, there’s a six-track version available on Bandcamp. I’m already on my way there.
5th May 2026