Elefant
Black Magic Show
Kemado/Hollywood
To follow up their 2003 debut, Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid, with the slickly-produced, “mature”-sounding Black Magic Show is to piss on the same audience to whom they once catered. Sunlight was a carelessly confident dance album given strength from frontman Diego Garcia’s deep Morrissey-meets-Robert-Smith voice and his conversationally poetic lyrics. Their charm was in the uninhibited storytelling which was in stark contrast to Garcia’s cock-sure posture.
With this new album produced by Don Gilmore (he’s worked with Duran Duran, but he’s also responsible for giving the polish to Linkin Park and Good Charlotte), the band seems to be seeking to legitimize themselves – to move out of the dance clubs and into the arenas. The dance moves are buried under the surface of the songs, but really only punch through on “Uh Oh Hello.”
This album would not be a bad debut, but when compared to what this band has put out before, it screams disappointment.
Elefant: http://www.elefantweb.com
