Marah’s Fresh, Raw Sound Energizes Rock’s Roots

Soul is as crucial an ingredient to rock ‘n’ roll as it is to R&B.; The Philadelphia band Marah understands this and feels it deeply, bringing loose energy and raw, lyrical urgency to a rock sound that is as exciting as it is blissfully retro. It’s been enough to attract the support of Steve Earle, who signed the band to his E-Squared label.

At Spaceland on Friday, the group was like a band out of time, drawing on a lineage stretching from the Rolling Stones to early Bruce Springsteen to the Replacements. But in Marah’s hands, the old rock conventions sounded fresh and exciting.

Wearing a tie and floppy Yankees hat, singer-guitarist Dave Bielanko sang in an anxious rasp of broken romance and everyday tragedy, inviting women in the audience onto the stage to shimmy and shake. On the band’s new “Kids in Philly” album, Marah plays in the funky, heartfelt vein of Springsteen’s “E Street Shuffle.” But at Spaceland, the band was wilder, playing with a punk band’s verve, barely pausing between songs for a dumb joke or two.

“I don’t care if that sounded good,” declared Bielanko early in the 90-minute set. “That was cool!”

Marah may not be adding many new twists on tried-and-true rock conventions, but it is as exciting a band of unknowns as you will find on the club circuit. They are unafraid to use banjo or lengthy harmonica solos and play with the looseness of the Faces, scattering bits and pieces of pop history into the mix (a minute of Santo & Johnny here, a lick or two of Lynyrd Skynyrd there).