THE MAGUS

Have you ever ever heard of a movie called 'Dude, where's my moog?' ? (yes the two question marks are necessary!) No? Oh come on! Everyone's seen that one! Nup????? Oh well, I'll explain. There's a modern day neo-prog band, they decided to call themselves "We love Peter Gabriel". A lot of people liked them because they sounded like Genesis and copied them and completely avoided any original ideas, because, that might have gotten them kicked out of ''the crowd''. One day the record company decided to send them to music school as part of a reality TV show called 'Rock Band goes to school'. On the very first day the music teacher starts reading out a list of instruments used in orchestra's

'Oboe'

This made the band members of "We love Peter Gabriel" very confused 'What's an oboe?' they questioned. The music teacher went on

'Flute'

'Clarinet'

'Cornet'

'Recorder'

After this the keyboardist of "We love Peter Gabriel" got such a headache from hearing all these instruments that he yelled out 'Dude! Where's my moog!' and hence, the title of the movie. What happened after that is not important, but what IS important is that for prog fans looking for original ideas in their prog, they should perhaps investigate this band, THIRD EAR BAND.

This is where you come for 'STUFF YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD BEFORE'.

Don't get me wrong, their rating is only 'three', they aren't going to make the sky fall in, mainly because they can be sloppy and poorly crafted, with some ill-conceived ideas, but at least they were trying to expand on the repertoire of Rock Music, rather than become an accepted member.

They explore a variety of instruments, they play a lot of Eastern melodies, a lot of strange lyrics, the vocals could be better though. However, I was taken aback by how striking and accomplished the keyboard/synths are on this album.

The best song is 'I the key' simply because it is the most refined, it's a kind of supernatural love song, with a prog-folk arrangement set to Indian drums. Also a highlight is 'The Heirophant' a mix of prog and Indian music with a disco beat, my personal favourite. 'New Horizon' is very intriguing, a haunting bass line which is mirrored by the organ, in the background is this infectious beat, which is actually a lot faster than the music. The title track is also stunning , with some amazing keyboards.

But there are some mistakes they made, by 1) not putting the vocalist high enough in the mix on a lot of the tracks and 2) having the same song twice. Also the whole thing is rough and unpolished, which is sometimes an advantage, but not here. The track 'The Pheonix' is poem reciting, with a bit of recorder or playing softly in the background.

So, it ain't a masterpiece. Okay, but it's better than some nasally-nosed teenager trying to sound like Gabriel, and, hey, why not listen to guys with long-beards who smell of 'substances' talk about big birds with supernatural powers and charm snakes with sitars while levitating and meditating at the same time? It sounds kind of froggy to me... sorry, I meant proggy ; - )

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