- Artist
- The Magic Numbers
- Label
- Heavenly
- Release date
- 6th November 2006
- Genre
- Indie
The Magic Numbers have gone from unknowns to impossibly famous in a very short space of time indeed. They played the Forum last year before they'd even had a record out, such was their live reputation and growing fanbase, and the quartet has since gone on to play to sizeable crowds both here and in the US.
A year and a half on from their eponymous debut longplayer which garnered them no less than a Mojo Best New Act award and a Mercury Prize nomination, brother and sister pairing Romeo and Michele Stodart and Angela and Sean Gannon are back with another album.
For fans of their first - and remarkably successful - collection of quirky songs, this will be welcome news. For the rest of us, well, we'll have to take a rain check on the experience. Why the baulking at such unbounded talent? Those The Brokes repeats the bothersome habit of its predecessor, namely kicking off with some interesting tunes, then about midway heading off downhill with gathering speed. Things start bright and breezily enough, with songs like You Never Had It and the oh-so bouyant Take A Chance. But by the time we get into the middle the record loses its momentum. Undecided begins this particular descent; some tunes are positively turgid, such as Slow Down (The Way It Goes), and the cause is not helped by Romeo's "unique" vocal style, which you either warm to or not, as the case may be.
Very much a case of great playing, decent enough production - from the Stodarts themselves - and some lovely string arrangements from Robert Kirby, who did the same job for Nick Drake on his Bryter Layter album more than 30 years ago. But that doesn't make this terribly likeable.
You love it or your don't. Sorry, but I don't.
