THE ELEVENTH HOUR

Magnum

Prog Related

3.26 | 77 ratings

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Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

No, not great or a disaster

Magnum's fourth studio album appears to find them struggling for worthy material. With just ten tracks of 3-5 minutes, there is little here to stimulate much excitement even for the most ardent fan of the band. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the weakness is here. Bob Catley certain puts in a worthy performance on vocals, and Tony Clarkin's production is adequate if not exciting. The combination of some prosaic compositions, and rather cheap sounding keyboards would appear to be the main source of the deficiencies.

"The great disaster" is one of the more notable tracks, with a very QUEEN like introduction (complete with stereo guitar blasts) and a much more adventurous structure than can be found elsewhere. Unfortunately it is all over in less than four minutes, leaving little room for instrumental embellishment other than a quick synth run.

Tracks such as "Vicious companions" "Hit and run" "Young and precious souls" and "So far away" are little more than AOR style songs which bands such as TOTO and FOREIGNER fill their albums with.

The standard Magnum power ballad is presented in the form of "The word", a pleasant but unremarkable number with a message. The final track, "The road to paradise" has some fine mellotron like sounds driving the marching rhythm, but the "We're all spinning on the roundabout" chorus is weak.

In all, a decent but below par offering from Magnum who appear to be treading water with this album.

The sleeve illustration is a remarkable but slightly disturbing work by Rodney Matthews which would have been ideal for a gatefold LP sleeve, something is was unfortunately not granted.

Easy Livin | 3/5 | 2007-4-7

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