Magical overdose
- The Magic Numbers (self-titled)
- Release Date: 10/04/2005
- The Numbers' debut is a rollicking good-time party CD that is best consumed in small doses. Not recommended for diabetics.
- Buy it on Amazon
If The Magic Numbers were a cereal, they’d have more sugar than Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Or Cocoa Puffs. Or even that Ritalin-endorsed, parental nightmare called Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Cereal, if that was possible.
Why? Because their eponymous debut record is so choked with sweetness, so overflowing with the excesses of enchanted melodies and doo-wop harmonies you don’t know whether to get up and dance like Napoleon Dynamite, or vomit.
Fortunately, I like sugary cereals. But even I have limits, and this record pushed them nearly as hard as Hanson’s chunder-inducing Middle of Nowhere.
Wasting no time to sling the syrup, The Magic Numbers burst out of the womb with “Mornings Eleven,” a compulsively danceable ditty that is so The Mamas and The Papas, from the male/female call-and-response chorus, to the folksy guitars and whimsical chanting. But it works, and like a charm. (Or, in this case, like a Lucky Charm that’s magically delicious.)
The Numbers keep the sweet going right through “Forever Lost,” another well-done track that had me bopping in my seat and humming along to the chorus, but ultimately left me craving a little less energy by the tune’s end. Anxious to see another side of this band, I hoped they’d start to come down a bit and start to showcase another dimension, another reason than happy melodies and sun-shininess to appreciate them.
Regrettably, that doesn’t happen any time soon, and we’re left at times wondering where one tune stops and another begins, they’re so similar. Tracks like “The Mule,” “Long Legs,” and “Love Me Like You Do,” are burdened by the same bubbly party passion that the first tunes benefit from, but by the time you get to these you’re already so wired on pop you just can’t take it anymore.
The first glimpse of a serious side we get from The Magic Numbers is, oddly enough, not until a track named “Which Way To Happy.” Anything but joyous (finally), this tune unfurls a side of the band we’ve been waiting way too long for, replete with strong songwriting and a soulful depth nearly invisible on every track preceding it. And if to say, yeah, there’s more where that came from, the very next track, “I See You, You See Me,” is just as emotional and soulful, if not more. Numbers’ frontman Romeo Stodart and Co. are brilliant on this one, displaying smoothly a blend of both a serious side with a catchy and vivacious one.
But with “Don’t Give Up The Fight,” the Numbers are right back at the cookie jar looking to tempt another sugar high with frothy choruses and candy-coated lyrics.
Though not entirely a one-dimensional, feel-good album, I really did enjoy parts of The Magic Numbers’ debut CD. But it suffers from among other things poor track placement, inappropriately bawdy lyrics and a bipolar self-image problem that wavers between too light and too grim. Superficial all of them, the dilemmas plaguing this CD are not ones that would scare me away from future recordings from the band and I’m actually excited to see what they do for an encore.
For now, however, I’m gagging a bit on this one. Here’s hoping the sophomore effort is Diet.
February 1st, 2006 at 11:56 am
Sounds like somehting I wouldn’t have thought to check out, but now plan to avoid. Thanks Vin.