The Magic Numbers - 'The Magic Numbers' (Heavenly)
5/5
By: Toby L
'God... can you hear me,' wails Romeo Stodart, amidst perhaps the most pertinent and crippling moment on his Magic Numbers' debut, 'Which Way To Happy?'. With tones this lush, He probably can.
For The Magic Numbers are everything that's fortuitous and good about the soul. They represent the warmth of true empathy and trust, and elation, and the strength of having overcome. Every song which lines their debut is packed with mesmerising, sweet, three-part harmonies (a beguiling force in themselves), and the classic notion that they could have been written any time in the last forty years. Influences / inspirations may prove numerable, yet this is a sound which is pressingly their own; one refined, and befitting to those lost in the wallowing stresses of the everyday grind and crumble of Modern Living.
We've got a soundtrack to alleviate our fears and woes. They've been there. Not one song on 'The Magic Numbers' doesn't depict love or loss and coming through on the other side. Twelve songs, beyond sixty minutes, of assurance, considered restraint, and elegiac arrangements; shots for the heart-broken, and affirmation for the enriched.
And then there's the fact these are just great bloody tunes. 'Forever Lost', the top-20 debut hit, is a shimmering, ageless gallivant ('Don't let the sun... be the one... to change you baby' - sentiments this twee give Gorky's and The Carpenters a run for their mullah), the opening 'Mornings Eleven' a hopelessly romantic, schizophrenic waltz which speeds and shifts form numerous times before descending into an 'Unchained Melody' of unbridled euphoria and 'ba ba ba's, and the desperate, rollicking proclamations of 'Love Me Like You' - all f**king belters.
Then there's the more shifty stuff: the violin-backed 'This Love', which melds delicately plucked acoustic guitar with some of the finer vocal arrangements herein, and it flies; 'The Mule', an enraged and drunken, bitter scalding, which erupts in a cascade of electric guitar psyche-feel-ia; and by the time you reach the twin-sung and complex breakdowns of 'I See You, You See Me', if you're not bellowing your sins and fears in a tear-stained, soppy mess through the sheer beauty of it all, then - quite possibly - you need a visit to the GP. And quick.
The mastery of the effort, however? The cohesiveness. Comprehensive, full songwriting which misses nothing. Not one song fails. Not one chorus fails to soften the heart. The Magic Numbers, seemingly aware of this, and the onslaught of sadness that ensues by the time its 'final' 'Try' passes, provide us one last beam of hope in a superb secret inclusion of 'Hymn For Her' - the astounding live-standout and limited-edition seven-inch release of theirs from the final embers of last year. By which point, you're already hopping to track-one for a repeat boost.
Ambient, recorded stark, honestly, intimately, and providing the sort of focus and esteem and integrity of artistry which will rear them this year's most successful and beloved of new talents, the only way The Magic Numbers could fail to win you over is if you denied yourself the privilege of accepting them and their reverence into your life. Please; don't be so foolish. We all need and deserve hope. Especially in this form.
Album. Of. The. Year. And / Or. Your. Life.
Artists in this article: The Magic Numbers
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