Magnum
Into The Valley Of The Moonking

Fifteenth studio album (including the excellent acoustic album "Keeping The Nite Light Burning") for the Birmingham quintet led by the formerly bearded and long-haired (but always great) Tony Clarkin, who for over thirty years has been the mind and heart of this monument of melodic rock.

Released on June 15th, 2009 "Into The Valley Of The Moonking" brings back a band in great shape after the previous (and in my opinion certainly not thrilling) "Princess Alice And The Broken Arrow," marking itself as their best work of recent years.

The album, once again presented with a splendid cover by Rodney Matthews, will delight every "studded but sentimental" rocker with a proposal surely more linear than the past, focusing more on emotion and on airy melodies than on the astonishing baroques of their beginnings.

A short keyboard intro, as simple as it is inspired, preludes to "Cry To Yourself", a melancholy yet energetic mid-tempo where they seem to pick up certain sounds from the excellent "Brave New Morning" of 2004. Immediately the five rockers distinguish themselves by the great variety of their offering, alternating quickly the sunny "All My Bridges" (much acclaimed live) and the refined hard rock of "Take Me To The Edge", up to the almost title track "The Moonking", an epic blues that not too subtly cites the glorious Rainbow with Dio (a reference not new to them).

Already among the band's classics is "A Face In The Crowd" which ranks among their best ballads ever, alongside the historic "The Last Dance" or the unfortunate "The Word" from the jewel that was "The Eleventh Hour." The track, led by the piano of a brilliant Mark Stanway and sung with incredible passion by an immortal Bob Catley, cannot fail to move even the most demanding fan*. Precise but somewhat in the background is the performance of bassist Al Barrow (already in Hard Rain) and former Terraplane and Thunder Harry James on drums (difficult for the latter to surpass Mickey Barker or the late Kex Gorin, prematurely deceased in 2007).

In closing, the (unfortunately) just over three minutes of "Feels Like Treason" are surprising, a track that recovers a certain dynamism as in the past (which I would like them to focus on in the future) and the very peculiar "Blood On Your Barbed Wire Thorns" where a scratchy stride à la AC/DC gives way to an unexpected melodic ending in which Tony Clarkin's magical slide notes offer us a truly ecstatic moment.

With a modern production yet respectful of the classic sound so dear to melodic rock enthusiasts, the album brings the English unicorn back to the forefront of a genre, AOR, which after years of oblivion seems to be slowly returning to public attention.

Long live Magnum!



*The demanding fan and the more attentive among you will also notice a similarity with another Magnum ballad: I'm talking about "Back In Your Arms Again" from the little-known "Rock Art" of '94, succeeding however, in the writer's opinion, where the latter somehow failed.