Something to consider when considering Magic Kids: the SuperBall, the enduring children's toy which served as a muse to this group's equally bouncy single of the same name, was invented by Norman H. Stingley in 1965. The Beach Boys dropped Pet Sounds in May of 1966. Wham-O sold over six million SuperBalls by December of that year, and Pet Sounds will forever remain, in these halls and elsewhere, a Really Big Deal. Both are American pop touchstones in their own right, exactly the kind of iconic, immediate imagery (see also: "Summer" and "Candy") and sounds with which the Memphis outfit has been playing since they formed in early 2009. But as much as Magic Kids lean on Brian Wilson and Phil Spector for sonic cues-- they like shine, smooth textures, and cinematic transitions-- their music aims to stir up the feelings you felt the first time you kissed, crushed, and played games, the first time you heard "God Only Knows".
Memphis, their debut LP, bottles all of that up with remarkable skill, but often to disappointing effect. Its many flourishes are much more satisfying than its songs, each dissolving on contact no matter how much buoyancy or sugar they boast for stretches. Opener "Phone Song" is a great, two-minute example. Strings quake. Guitars gleam. The horns are exactly where they should be, and over a mattress of synth, frontman Bennett Foster places himself next to a phone waiting for a girl to call. We're much more familiar with that image than we are with Foster, and as instantly accessible as the blueprint is, Foster doesn't make the formula his own. Just as he does in the sprint of "Superball" or the schooner romance "Sailin'", he doesn't throw his personality or memory into the fray, choosing to work instead with childhood cut outs. Think for a second on Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino, who has made listeners either swoon or yawn when belting almost exclusively about boys and heartache. Cosentino, whether you think it's lazy or hilarious, has also made enough use of weed and cat and beach references to lend her pastiche its own spin, to create her own world within her music.
But while Magic Kids' arrangements almost always sparkle, there's little tension and release to bind them all together, leaving us instead with a salad of major chords. It requires more digging. "Skateland" features a fantastic sense of drama: woodwinds float over rumbling tympani, a piano pulses, and in and out, from time to time, an overdriven guitar solo adds another muscle for moving. Before that, album standout "Hey Boy" adds a wild card in the form of a floozy and some wild insecurity. "My steady girl/ Don't always say," Foster begins, "That she's in love with me/ But I can feel in the way/ She gives me hugs and kisses too/ And I get so many I don't need any from you." At which point, alongside some sax and a piledriving snare beat, he starts assuring backup vocalist Alice Buchanan that his girl's no liar. Nope. All those other guys she's always talking to are just friends. The narrative bursts with an energy that matches the swerve and verve of its song, in a way that can't be found easily on Memphis. It all pops together at once. It sticks.
