Beekstraat 1 - B-2640 Mortsel - Belgium

MAGIC PIE: Circus of Life

Release

Style

I have waited very anxiously for the successor of the debut album ‘Motions of Desire’ of Magic Pie, one of the best releases of 2005. It is by no means a sinecure to equal the quality of such a top album, or even to surpass it. This Norwegian band has fulfilled my expectations again, although they have taken a slightly different musical turn point/ Naturally, it remains progressive rock, but more oriented towards hard rock or even some progressive metal. And especially the influence of Uriah Heep becomes very obvious, as for the ‘overall sound’ but also for the special and very characterizing sound of the guitar. Their music holds the middle between progressive rock and hard rock of the seventies and the current scene of neo progressive rock. And apparently it also appeals to the public, because they are present this year on RosFest (USA) and Sweden Rock Festival.

The ballad ‘Welcome’ begins in a Mostly Autumn style, but then tends towards the more quieter (emo)rock of the seventies, bands like Uriah Heep and Kansas had those kind of songs on their repertoire. In ‘Freakshow’ it becomes a bit heavier and more complex, progressive rock with vintage Hammond, loads of guitar and a heavy rhythm section, certainly some influences of The Flower Kings are noticeable, although the guitar riffs sound a bit harder than their fellow-countrymen. And ‘What if’ breaths out the atmosphere of the seventies as well, again a ballad with references to Alan Parsons, The Eagles but also to a lot of hard rock bands of that era, beautiful vocals with an excellent ‘distorted’ guitar solo on top. What a contrast with the epic ‘Trick of the mind’, starting in true progressive metal style, but like the longest track on their previous album it is full of tempo changes, mood changes and styles, ‘Flower Kings meet Dream Theater’. And as already mentioned they have listened very well to Uriah Heep, for the insiders, they even use the 'aahh' trick of ‘Bird of Prey’. And again there is a short jazzy fragment on guitar, you get the impression to have landed in the middle of a song of Deep Purple. The beautiful guitar solos have the quality mark of Mick Box, the sound colour is surprisingly comparable. In the second part of the song there is a captivating piece of guitar, only supported by drums, referring to bands like Trapeze and Bad Company. It may seem like Magic Pie is a cover band (they used to be), but they compose their own tracks based on the success formulas of super groups of the past, who can blame them?

I don't know if it's on purpose, but after each heavy track there is a moment of rest, but the splendid guitar solo of The Clown grabs you immediately, top quality melodic hard rock. ‘Pointless Masquerade’ is a nice piece of progressive rock, like Spock’s Beard tend to bring it nowadays, ‘heavy’ but with a lot of feeling for melody, and also a ‘Gentle Giant’ feeling, like Beard also integrates on all of their albums. Spanish and Oriental influences give this song some extra.

The band also uses a lot of sound samples, like for example at the beginning of ‘Watching the Waters’, a song completely in the vein of the Swedish school, especially of the label Progress Records with bands like Grand Stand, Cross and Galleon. Catchy melodies with a lot of keyboards and guitars, a bit strange is the silence of about a minutes between some drums and harmonica, after which it gets even a bluesy Fleetwood Mac feeling.

Overall Magic Pie brings the perfect mix between progressive rock, hard rock and melodic metal, a better description would be ‘progressive classic rock’, especially because of the links with the past. I am an unconditional fan of this kind of music, not always easy for the listener, but the integration of several music genres makes it very interesting. Hopefully we can see them once live in our neighbourhood!
 

Musicians

Kim Stenberg -guitars, sitar, vocals
Lars Petter Holstad -bass
Gilbert Marshall -keyboards, marimba, lead vocals
Jan Torkild Johannessen -drums
Allan Olsen -lead vocals
Eirik Hanssen -lead vocals

with:

Kor Artig -Choir on "Circus of life Part 5"
Liv Frengstad -Cello on "Circus of life Parts 1 & 5"
Goran Dahlberg -Trombone on "Pointless masquerade"
Marielle & Caroline Stenberg -Kids on "Circus of life part 1

1 Part 1 - Welcome (3:24)
2 Part 2 - Freakshow (6:14)
3 Part 3 - What if...(8:09)
4 Part 4 - Trick of the mind (21:50)
5 Part 5 - The Clown (6:07)
6 Pointless masquerade (8,57)
7 Watching the waters (9:31)

Motions of Desire (2005)

Circus of Life (2007)

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Last updated: 11 mei 2007 .
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