Hi guys, Anthony here.

I want to talk a little bit about Murderhobo Martha Volume 2, because I am genuinely excited about this project. While I was writing the lyrics, I was laughing pretty regularly, which is usually a good sign that I’ve committed hard enough to the stupidity.

Volume 2 picks up exactly where Murderhobo Martha left off.

Our fighter is still Rank F. She’s still wandering around a dungeon. Ridiculous things continue to happen to her, mostly by design and occasionally because Martha’s understanding of reality has become increasingly questionable.

At the end of Volume 1, Martha is following a cleric named Denise up the stairs. Martha is smiling, of course, because she’s been down in this dungeon for way too long and she’s starting to go a little nuts.

And that’s where we begin.

Party Carry Energy

Our first track is Party Carry Energy, and yes, the title is a terrible joke.

Denise dies almost immediately.

But Martha still considers Denise a member of the party, which means she’s not about to leave her behind. So Martha literally carries Denise’s skeleton around the dungeon.

Which also makes Martha the “carry” of the party.

Ha ha. Funny funny. Waka waka.

That is exactly the kind of corny nonsense you should expect from this album.

Martha spends the song getting increasingly annoyed that she’s carrying every fight by herself. She keeps calling out to Denise to jump in and help, and every single time, to Martha’s great disappointment, Denise contributes absolutely nothing.

Clearly, Denise is just a terrible party member.

Bad Slime

Bad Slime still makes me laugh. I listen to it pretty regularly.

It’s a slime.

It meets Denise.

You can probably figure out where this is going.

That’s all I’m going to say.

Skeleton Crew

With Skeleton Crew, I wanted to do two things.

First, I thought it would be hysterical if Martha became jealous of a group of animated skeletons because, unlike Denise, these skeletons are actually walking around and doing stuff.

And I think that joke landed pretty well.

But I also wanted to make sure there was still some actual music happening inside all this ridiculous storytelling.

That’s something I’ve been trying to balance more and more with these projects. There are lots of narrated sections, dialogue, jokes, and storytelling, but I don’t want the songs to just be audio stories with background music.

I still want choruses. I still want breakdowns. I still want riffs.

So throughout the album, you’ll have these sections where the story is moving forward, and then suddenly the narration clears out and everything drops into a big, groovy, head-bobbing guitar riff.

I think Skeleton Crew does that particularly well. I really love how the chorus came out on that one.

Mist in the Hall

Next is Mist in the Hall.

If you know, you know.

That’s all I’m going to say about this song.

If you’re an Android 86 fan and you’ve been following some of the other stories, you’ll probably recognize who Martha runs into.

I’ve really started enjoying these little crossovers, and I think I’m going to do more of them as I continue building out this increasingly ridiculous shared universe.

If you can even call this a music project anymore.

It’s a music/story hybrid thing.

Whatever.

At this point, I’m just making stuff.

One of my favorite jokes in this track is having the characters give Martha a resurrection scroll… and Martha simply not understanding why anybody would possibly think she’d need one.

Perfectly logical.

Party Dispute

Then we get to Party Dispute.

We’re still playing with the same basic situation: Martha remains completely convinced that Denise is simply a lazy party member who refuses to help.

Then Martha encounters a necromancer.

And when the necromancer animates Denise, Martha’s reaction is basically:

Oh my God. You can WALK? You’ve been faking this the entire time?!

That idea made me laugh immediately, so obviously I had to write an entire song around it.

The lyrics to Party Dispute are completely over the top, but at some point I realized I just needed to fully commit to what this story is.

This is basically my sense of humor with the guardrails removed.

Over-the-top ridiculous violence.

Absurd situations.

Characters completely misunderstanding what’s happening around them.

Perspectives that become increasingly warped.

And then an absolutely irresponsible amount of corny dad humor mixed throughout the whole thing.

That’s Murderhobo Martha.

BFF Denise

Finally, we get to BFF Denise.

After spending most of the album dragging Denise’s skeleton around and complaining about how useless she is, Martha finally ends up with a wand that has a passive ability to animate the dead.

Martha keeps talking to Denise exactly the way she has throughout the entire story.

Except now…

Denise actually listens.

And from a storytelling perspective, I’ve intentionally left something unanswered here.

I genuinely don’t know whether Martha consciously understands that the wand is animating Denise.

Maybe Martha is completely gone at this point and sincerely believes that Denise finally decided to stop being lazy after their argument.

Maybe, in Martha’s mind, their fight cleared the air and Denise has finally decided to start pulling her weight.

Or maybe Martha is only mostly crazy.

Maybe somewhere deep down there’s still a tiny thread of sanity connecting all of this together, and she understands more than she’s letting on.

I don’t really want to answer that.

I think it’s funnier if you decide for yourself.

Anyway, It’s Out

Murderhobo Martha Volume 2 officially releases October 2.

Lately I’ve been putting albums out about a day early so I have some time to make sure everything launches correctly, which means you can actually listen to this one now.

You can find it on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and the usual places.

Personally, I think my music sounds best on Spotify or Apple Music. YouTube seems to compress the audio more aggressively, and with music like this there’s a lot going on in the mix. If you’ve listened on YouTube and noticed some weirdness, try it again on Spotify with the highest-quality audio settings enabled. There’s a pretty noticeable difference.

I’m constantly jumping around Spotify checking tracks, adjusting playlists, and listening to things I’m working on, and the difference has become pretty obvious to me.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

I hope you enjoy Murderhobo Martha Volume 2 as much as I enjoyed making it.

We’ll see whether I have enough creative energy left to make a Volume 3.

As for what I’m making next week?

I have absolutely no idea.

There is no plan.

I’m just going to see where the creativity takes me.

Thanks for reading, guys. Thanks for listening.

I’ll talk to you next time.

— Anthony