When I was an unenlightened kid still listening to rock radio circa 1981-82, I used to tune into a weird local access T.V. show called Alternative Rockstand on late late Sunday nights. The host used to play all kinds of bizarre music, but I think he really liked super dark synth punk bands coz that’s what I remember him playing the most.Cut to 30 years later and I’m listening to the High Marks tapes and damn if it doesn’t sound just like that weird synth stuff that blasted out of the mono speaker on my massive Zenith set.High Marks is apparently a one man minimal darkwave unit from Georgia. I couldn’t find too much other info…which make this dude even more mysterious, cool!! So while the face of High Marks remains a question mark, an uncertainty about his music should instantly disappear the moment the tape hits the magnetic head.Stylistically, HM straddles the fine line between really early UK industrial/goth and US cold wave synth punk. He manages to find a good home within that space by really stretching it out to show how versatile he can be. It’s dark, cold, menacing, intimidating, but very real – there’s not one note that suggests this dude isn’t 100% legit. Elements of the legendary era of the cassette underground and early ’80s horror soundtracks shift in and amidst the goth dipped coldwave darkzone creepers. Eli Marks show a tremendous amount of growth from his earlier releases. Once I started spinning this, it stayed on infinite repeat on the tape deck for a good month as I alternately remained amazed at how great each song was and reminisced about the sketchy heroin dudes with really hacked-up haircuts that used to point me towards all kindsa cool and strange records when I used to hang around one of the independent record shops in my town.By Chris Jacques