O · Song!

5. The Magic Numbers - The Magic Numbers
(Heavenly Records, 2005)

The Magic Numbers - "Long Legs"
(track 4, 3:19, 4.81mb)

The Magic Numbers - "Love's A Game"
(track 10, 4:50, 6.33mb)

A debut album full of consistently good songs is less than common. Neither is a debut album where a band already has a good sound that's distinctive. A debut album which has both good songs and a distinctive sound, these days, is very rare.

And the Magic Numbers have done all of the above. Their self-titled debut is extraordinarily consistent - nary a bad song on the thing - they have melodic and lyrical substance, and they're as catchy as fuck. Pretty much any song on the album would make a good single. And I'm drawing blanks trying to find bands to compare them to. Belle & Sebastian and the Smiths have been bandied around in the press, but they barely resemble either. Romeo Stoddard's voice betrays a little of his Jamaican heritage, without being too obvious about it; it's breathy, with a slight nasal ring to it, and it's a versatile voice. I suspect it's capable of more emotions than those present on the album (most of which are some variation on bittersweetness) . Stoddard has a distinctive vocal foible or two; he often quickly rises from one note to another on the first note of a phrase, and he really loves going from his regular voice to his falsetto in the middle of a word - "I'm forevER LOST", for example. Neil Finn is another singer/songwriter who uses the falsetto trick a lot, to great effect, and it's a harder trick to pull off than it sounds.

Musically, there's a lot of swing in the Magic Numbers' arrangements, and distant echoes of reggae and ska; the band have a natural groove, at least, that makes the likes of Belle & Sebastian or The Smiths seem very staid and English (not that this is a bad thing). Perhaps what is unique about the band is this combination of the natural groove, of an emphasis on rhythm and the traditional instrumentation and styles of indie pop (e.g., the cutesy handclap, the melodica and the deliberately non-macho singing). The rhythm of "Long Legs" isn't far removed from the rhythm of the bouncier Smiths songs like "This Charming Man", and the instrumentation isn't far off either; the guitars are inventive in the style of the Smiths' Johnny Marr, there's cutesy handclaps, a melodic, McCartneyesque bassline (which is important in three-piece indie pop, to provide melodic interest), and breathy indie-girl backing vocals reminiscent of Belle & Sebastian. "Long Legs" also has perhaps the best example of the distinctive vocal falsetto thing, where Stoddard sings, "I don't wanna lose your love, I don't want to ch-OOSE just one", where he goes from normal voice to falsetto mid-syllable on the word "choose".

Obviously a certain proportion of the population would find The Magic Numbers too sugary-sweet, too upbeat and too melodic. I'm definitely in a different mood when I want to listen to the Magic Numbers than the mood I'm in when I want to listen to, say, Neil Young & Crazy Horse. But at the same time, Stoddard's songwriting is far too accomplished for me to ignore. The arrangements sound like a real band playing together, playing against each other. There's a good grasp of unpredictable dynamics in the song structures of even a fairly straightforward ballad like "Love's A Game". It all sounds natural, unforced, and confident.

I envy Romeo Stoddard - having the level of talent he has, and having a band and producer who are sympathetic to his style, who get what it's about, and who add to it in their own ways. The Magic Numbers are everything that popular music in Britain is not at the moment - they're not skinny, the guitars aren't dirty and angular, there's actually melodies in the vocals, and they don't sound a thing like the Killers. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the next big movement in British music is towards Magic Numbers-esque music, when the NME gets bored with the Bravery, and so forth, because they're the opposition. I would approve of such a world.

tim.