The Magic Numbers have had flashes of promise. Their 2005 self-titled LP had moments of appealing post-twee rock (think PAS/CAL's more Guitar Hero-y moments), even if the back half was clogged with too many plodding tracks. But the band continued with the latter direction on 2007's Those the Brokes, with an increasingly uneven ratio of solid cuts to flat-out bricks. It makes sense, then, that their third album, The Runaway, would try for something completely different. Here, they shuffle through one stylistic experiment after another. The fingerprint on the album's cover art seems a little ironic, since for the first time, the Magic Numbers seem hard to identify.
The best cuts are the ones reminiscent of highlights from their other albums, where they pair light melodies and energetic arrangements with big-hearted sentiments. "A Start with No Ending" contains a delicious riff seemingly piped in from Big Star's Radio City days. The deceptively simple "Sound of Something" builds and builds, exploding like soft-focus fireworks every time the chorus finishes. And "The Song That No One Knows" does well by a slowed-down soft rock motif and AM radio strings, while the rolling space-rock of "Hurt So Good" brings to mind the good old days of The Man Who-era Travis.
The highlights are spread out, meaning you have to cut through a lot of chaff like the tepid Fleetwood Mac-isms of "Why Did You Call?" or the hollow British folk of "Restless River" to get to them. And the genre exercises interspersed throughout feel misguided, suggesting that even if the Magic Numbers have an understanding of the sounds they're attempting to emulate, they lack the songwriting chops to bring them to life. Like on "The Pulse", which goes for symphonic schmaltz and ends up uncomfortably discordant and mismatched, with every melodic turn bleating against the song's misplaced string parts. Or the dismal-sounding "I'm Sorry", where Romeo Stodart's voice barely breaks a whimper amongst ill-placed elements like snatches of piano, an irregular bass line, wheezing harmonica, and saxophone stabs. The several minutes of orchestral nonsense tacked on as a "bonus track" feel unearned. For those of us who have been waiting for this band to realize how good they can truly be, it hasn't happened yet.
