The Magic Numbers are easy to love. It helps that they tap the soul-stirring tropes of popdork hagiography: resolute indifference to trends, early 7-inches scarcer than the '89 Bill Ripken swear card you foolishly put in plastic, and an anti-image image that had humble rock typists at "hirsute" (um guilty). The late 2004 release of first single "Hymn for Her" introduced freedom-hating mp3-downloaders and a few eBay high-rollers to the British quartet's distinctive sound, updated 1960s folk-pop steeped in xylophone and catharsis. The cognoscenti smiled; the UK press readied its superlatives. But who needs 'em?
On their self-titled, full-length debut, the Magic Numbers are easy for your mother, grandmother, older brother, kid sister and their American Idol-obsessed friends to love, too. (Is it cool to like American Idol this week? The Magic Numbers don't care.) Let's get this out of the way right now: I'm gonna have to drop the triple-A bomb. AAA stands for the "Adult Album Alternative" radio format, which stands for Dave Matthews Band, Train, and Matchbox 20, so Pitchfork pretty much won't stand for it. The Magic Numbers could have waxed nostalgic for the folk-pop equivalent of the nouveau new-wave and gotten the easy 6.7. Instead, they've created what will doubtless stand as 2005's best AAA record. And, contrary to that genre's built-in assumptions, it doesn't even suck. Musical bait 'n' switch hasn't been this exhilarating since Blur tapped dulcet Anglo-gospel stomp "Tender" as the lead single for cacophonous 1999 album 13.
Newest single "Forever Lost" reveals the Numbers' world-dominating intentions right away. Its initial clear, ringing guitar chords owe both their tone and voicing to the alternating E and E major seventh of another AAA hit: "No Such Thing", which vaulted misunderestimated indie anathema John Mayer into the top 40 some three years ago. As the hook, lead singer Romeo Stodart reaches for Chris Martin's now-ubiquitous falsetto-- "forever lost -- and shit, that kinda works, too. In between, the natural harmonies of the band's two brother-sister pairings chart the kind of melody most indie-pop groups would kill stuffed animals for. Handclaps ensue. If the reference points are a tad obvious, so is the song's appeal.
To say the Magic Numbers are instantly accessible is not to say they're simplistic. The album's most emotionally charged number, the six-minute "I See You, You See Me", casts a vulnerable duet of self-discovery amid ever-shifting dynamics. Ornate, country-tinged guitar fills enliven several songs, particularly "Long Legs". Often, multiple voices will bat key lyrics back and forth like rainbow-colored beach balls, until they become a sort of joyful, lovelorn mantra-- a Polyphonic Spree for normals. The lonesome twang of "Wheels on Fire" hints at the great Parsons-Harris duets, though this slick album version lacks the intimacy of the leaked demo you'll find on file-sharing networks. Mostly, though, the Magic Numbers are just clean fun, from the banjo-like guitar romp of "Morning's Eleven" to the uptempo, tambourine-crashing power-pop of "Love Me Like You".
So: Why not an even higher score, you ask? Though the Numbers' refreshing style merits the oft-made Mamas-and-the-Papas comparisons as well as the AAA allusions, they don't have anything close to a "California Dreaming". The songwriting falls a couple of times too many into timid generalities about love and loss (cf. "Love Is a Game", which isn't a Michelle Branch/Santana cover); the melodies, though lovely, are sometimes interchangeable. "One more drink and I'll be fine/ One more girl to take you off my mind," Stodart sings on "Mule", but it sounds like a feeling remembered from someone else's song rather than something he's experienced. Yes, the Magic Numbers are easy to love -- but until they grow into their considerable gifts is it OK if I just really, really like them?
