The Magic Numbers
The Runaway
(Heavenly/Shock)
Having released their second album a year on from their first, one-time UK buzz band the Magic Numbers decided in late 2007 to retreat from the road and focus on individual pursuits. Now, a few years later, we have The Runaway, for which the brother-sister English quartet procured their own studio and collaborated with Icelandic producer Valgeir Sigurdsson (Björk, múm). They also hired strings arranger Robert Kirby, who orchestrated the band’s previous album as well as two Nick Drake records. Tragically, Kirby died suddenly at age 61 as The Runaway was being completed, and so the album closes with a reprisal of his string parts.
Back story aside, The Runaway doesn’t abandon the band’s broadly sentimental lyrics and Mamas & the Papas harmonies so much as cloud it all with dreamy production and try out a few stylistic detours. ‘Why Did You Call?’ is an electronics-tinged blue-eyed-soul duet, while Angela Gannon steps in for lead singer Romeo Stodard on ‘Throwing My Heart Away’, a slinky, late-night missive that would sound like another band entirely if not for the teen-diary lyrics. ‘The Song That No One Knows’ channels Al Green with lush pillows of strings and falsetto, while a whooshing array of sounds penetrate ‘Dreams Of A Revelation’. The Fleetwood Mac-ish ‘Once I Had’ is darker, detached, and overly polished, none of which does any favours for the band’s trademark naiveté.
The Magic Numbers feel much more at home amid the casual pop bliss of the opening ‘The Pulse’ and closing ‘I’m Sorry’, all horns and harmonies. The songs are best when matching a sleepy sweetness to snappy hooks, even if the newly spacey textures can fog the heart of things. The most immediate entry, ‘A Start With No Ending’, is to the point and all the more winning for it. Even iffy lyrics like “When does a dream become a lullaby?” and “Why do we never look love in the eye?” reflect the song’s starry-eyed awe.
If The Runaway is the Magic Numbers tinkering with their formula, it’s not a particularly wise choice. The soul thing is cute and the thick production provides a lasting distraction, but old-school, clear-eyed pop will always be the band’s default setting. And rightly so: when couching their more saccharine leanings, they can soar.
Doug Wallen