CD Review
Magenta
"Home &
New York Suite"
Rating 92%
reviewed by Charlie O'
Being a total proghead, I'll go through the tracks in their progper order.
The album starts of with the gentle and atmospheric This Life, featuring just Christina and Rob on keyboards, with a touch of strings at the end. This leads into the heavier Hurt which starts off on a riff by guitarist Chris Fry and builds up from there.
Moving On starts off as another gentler track on which Christina and Chris both get to show off their talents, while the rest of the guys make steady in the background. But when part two of it kicks in it immediately brings Pink Floyd to mind, and less obviously, forgotten indie-prog outfit Mansun. The lyrics on the first three tracks tell of this nameless girl (we'll call her Cilla for now) feeling lost and hurt and out of touch with her surroundings. She's not having a lorra lorra laughs, and, surprise surprise, after a couple of failed blind dates she comes to the conclusion that her boots are made for walking so she's leaving on a jet plane.
My Home Town is another that builds up slowly, and it's tracks like this that give the album a Brave-era Marillioness feel. Maybe it's the subject matter that leads to it. Brave New Land is a short interlude before the excellent The Journey arrives, bringing with it loads of Genesisian and Yes style hooks and riffs, melding them together with Christina's wonderful voice into a prog smorgasbord. Earlier on this week I was listening to Yes' Fragile album on the way home from London. When I woke up, the album had finished but I had this song floating around in my head and it was only later that I realised what it was. Fascinating, eh? So this track will be on the next Silhobbit podcast, mark my words...
The short Towers of Hope tells the story of the Cilla's arrival in New York, filled with wonder and hope before finishing with atmospheric police radio chatter...
This is where the New York Suite starts to fit in with the opener Arrival. It's fitting that this story is set in the 1970's as the music evokes the great prog bands of the day, this being an 11 minute Genesis meets Yes kinda magic. As far as the story goes, this tells of Cilla's arrival in NYC and her determination to settle despite the indifference of the locals.
The melodic Home From Home, which follows, moves the story along in fine style, telling how Cilla starts to fit in by making up a false history for herself, til it all comes crashing down around her pretty white socks on White Lies, lonely and destitute, wandering around and then comes the heavier Demons, largely instrumental, until the end featuring distorted and nightmaric vocals by Christina, telling of the dreams she has whilst in the Big Apple. Truth follows next, in a lighter poppier way, Yes at their 90125 age perhaps, epic in it's 10 minute length, as well as it's style.
On Morning Sunlight out we learn that Cilla has decided to leave NY and head across country on the incurably romantic yet notoriously unreliable Greyhound Busses. The track itself is another of these musical interludes that can make or break a concept album. This preludes another 11 minute epic in Joe (Brown?) which passes thru quickly and, sadly, unmemorably, before a short The Dream heralds the striking The Visionary, a snappy 6 minutes long and sure to be a favourite live. This is where the journey becomes a nightmare, though what Joe does is anyone's guess. Sings, probably, in his rough cockney accent.
The slow bluesy ambience of Journey's End comes next, a welcome change of pace and style, along with the short instrumental The Travellers Lament. Better than Norman Lamont, I would have said. Fifteen years ago.
The album is rounded off with the damn fine Home, smurfed in pipes and horns and bits and pieces. Wonderful!
Rob Reed cut his masterpiece into two masterpieces, thinking that less is more. But sometimes, as this album proves, more can be morer!
Track Listing
This Life
Hurt
Moving On
My Home Town (Far Away)
Brave New Land
The Journey
Towers of Hope
Arrival *
Home From Home *
White Lies *
Demons
Truth *
Morning Sunlight
Joe
The Dream
The Visionary
Journey's End
The Travellers Lament
Home
This Life (reprise) *