THE SUFFERING JOY

Well I have to admit that Magic Pie with their new album "The Suffering Joy" has come as something of a surprise to me. Two weeks ago I had never even heard of Magic Pie, then recently their name started appearing on Progarchives popular artists list and as I always do, I decided to take a look. Their biography sounded good, Scandinavian band's playing Symphonic prog have something of a good reputation over recent years.

I immediately searched spotify and the earlier albums show up. A few spins of those albums and I they start to grow on me. I soon bought the latest album which I am yet to be disappointed with.

The album kicks off with "A Life's Work", a multi part epic which sets the tone very nicely for the rest of the album. Each segment has it's own identity with the final part a clear stand out, there are some excellent hooks in this.

The next track "Headlines" follows the high standard of the first epic. An equally varied track with a great melody. This is perhaps more standard fare and some great lyrics and vocals.

"Slight Mad", it's easy to see how they got the title. This starts with some excellent keyboards, before morphing into some Deep Purple style, perhaps its the vocals that make it sound this way to me. There is some standout guitar playing towards the end of this track.

Another mini epic follows. "Tired" doesn't reach quite the heights of "A Life's Work" but is none the less excellent. Shades of Shadow Gallery in places, which is no bad thing.

The final track "In memoriam" is a nice way to close, although not quite up to the standard of the previous song.

All in all this is one great find for me and I can certainly recommend the album. I would rate it as 9/10 so I'm going to round upto 5*.