I knew I was in trouble when I opened up the press kit for
\nCanadian band Magic Music when one of the first images I was
\ngreeted with was the drawing of a bare-breasted woman holding two
\nsnakes. My worry was that I was in for an evening of listening to
\nexperimental electronic music with bizarre lyrics.<\/p>\n
And after listening to
\nDark To Light<\/i>, I stood corrected in my assumption that the
\nalbum would be filled with bizarre sexual imagery. And it was not
\nthe bizarre electronic nightmare I thought it would be. But the
\nband suffers from its own ambitions.<\/p>\n
The band’s core is comprised of vocalist Frank Phillet and
\nguitarist Neil MacIver, who spent the better part of the past ten
\nyears recording and mixing this album for its eventual release
\nabout a year ago. After spending almost three decades together
\nworking on and refining their style, they have only been met with
\nrejection from the majors, telling them their songs have no
\ncommercial potential.<\/p>\n
I don’t think I’d go that far, but you’d be hard-pressed to hear
\nsometing similar to Magic Music’s style on the radio today. It is a
\nstyle that taqkes some getting used to – and frankly, I can’t say
\nI’m quite used to it yet.<\/p>\n
The lyrics seem to fall under the “stream of consciousness”
\nstyle – Phillett’s lyrics often don’t rhyme or follow any true
\nrhythmic pattern with the music. On songs like “Friday Night At The
\nBookclub,” this works as a disadvantage for the band; keeping some
\norder to go with the music’s tempo would go a long way in improving
\nthis band. (And I don’t care how poetic the imagery is, this song
\nproves that cock-rock is still cock-rock.)<\/p>\n
Often, it feels like the band doesn’t have the confidence it
\nneeds to break out and make their presence heard on the
\ninstrumentation. I found myself constantly waiting for the drums to
\nreally kick in or for MacIver to kick his guitar into overdrive and
\nput some muscle into the mix. Just a small shift in instrumental
\nstyle would have spoke volumes on songs like “Lifeforce:Deathfoce”
\nand “Under Another Moon.”<\/p>\n
I also found myself waiting for Phillet to cut loose in the
\nvocal department. When he has the courage to do so on songs like
\n“It’s Just My Foolish Heart,” it adds a whole new dimension to the
\nmusic. But for the most part, Phillet’s delivery is quite
\nmelancholy – and that’s not always a good thing.<\/p>\n
Even when Magic Music tries to cut loose on “The Radiant Blue
\nHorizons,” the change in style makes them sound uncomfortable. And
\nI’m not arguing that they should mold themselves into the sound of
\na bar band, ’cause I don’t think it would work for them. But when
\nthey’re on, like they were on “It’s Just My Foolish Heart” – hell,
\neven when they come close to the target on “Lifeforce:Deathforce,”
\nyou can hear the difference.<\/p>\n
Maybe part of the problem is that they have spent over a decade
\nwriting, recording and mixing this album (someone wanna warn Tom
\nScholz that he’s got company?). In my experience, there comes a
\ntime when you’ve done all the work you can do on a project, and you
\njust have to let it go and hope for the best, rough edges and all.
\nIn the case of
\nDark To Light<\/i>, it maybe was in the shop a little too
\nlong.<\/p>\n
I hate writing negative reviews of independent bands, because it
\nmay make them think they don’t have a chance of competing against
\nestablished bands – c’mon, do you
\nreally<\/i> think I’m looking forward to another decade of crap
\nfrom Motley Crue? But maybe one grows with constructive criticism.
\nIn the case of Magic Music, they’re not a bad band –
\ndifferent<\/i>, yes, but not bad. And maybe someone who can
\nappreciate the weirdness of, say, King Crimson, can appreciate the
\nmoods Phillet and MacIver are setting on
\nDark To Light<\/i>. But the average listener is normally not
\nwilling to expend the extra time or thought towards “stream of
\nconsciousness” music. My advice: tighten up the lyrics just a bit,
\nhave the courage to put some crunch in to the instrumentation, and
\ncall me when it’s done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5770],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-35658","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-magic-music","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35658"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35658"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}