Magnum
Wings of Heaven

No way... Is this a joke? Our glorious DeSito still doesn't comprehend a review of one of the peaks of Magnum's discography, considered by many as their masterpiece alongside On a Storyteller's Night and Vigilante (and I would also add the seminal Chase the Dargon)??? Ok Federock, it's time to get back in the game and fill the considerable gap. It's time to review Wings of Heaven, the seventh album of a career that has never highlighted slumps or falls in style, but instead has always gifted the band's fans with good albums, sometimes excellent, occasionally among the best of the genre, as in the case of this Wings of Heaven. Not to mention that this level of quality in their production hasn't even dropped today, after 35 years of career, thanks to a series of releases, from a reunion about ten years ago to today, all of very high value for lovers of the sounds proposed by our band.

Oh right, I forgot, what do Magnum play? Well, labeling them would certainly be misleading for those who still don’t know them, also because I can, without fear of contradiction, affirm that the Birmingham group has codified a genre, or anyway a sub-genre, entirely personal. I could say, to explain it, AOR, hard rock, melodic rock, epic rock, pomp rock, heavy rock, but none of these definitions would perfectly describe their music, which carries the essence of all the sound ingredients just listed, none last being folk, and none in particular, taking something from all these and reworking them in an absolutely personal way, thanks to the stylus of the historic guitarist Tony Clarkin, always the silent leader of the group and author of almost all the music and lyrics of the songs, capable of writing even today splendid melodies, precise and winning riffs, sublime arrangements and generally perfect songs. But also thanks to the unique vocal timbre of Bob Catley, a true minstrel storyteller of Anglo-Saxon rock, whose voice still knows how to strike and fascinate today, not surprisingly highly requested for collaborations and various appearances, among which stand out those of Ayreon and Avantasia, choral projects of prog-power metal put together respectively by masterminds Arjen Lucassen (what a legend!) and Tobias Sammet. Lastly, a note of merit for the regal sound of our band goes to keyboardist Mark Stanway, always skilled in weaving sound plots of great taste to enhance the compositions of the solid Clarkin.

Wings of Heaven was released in 1988, when melodic hard rock and AOR were experiencing their golden season and our band had already contributed, thanks to their epic style, to distance and distinguish themselves from the myriad of groups that at the time populated the American and British charts first and foremost, but the whole world in general, with a series of valuable albums that in 10 years, from the debut of Kingdom of Madness in '78, saw our style emerge during the full NWOBHM wave, already characterized by a dramatic and majestic heavy rock, rich in sumptuous choirs and heavy sounds, passing through a less elaborate and more sophisticated hard rock, always with airy melodies in the foreground and the folk-epic moods characteristic of the northern lands (and the masterpiece in this sense is without a doubt the aforementioned On a Storyteller's Night of '85), arriving with the previous Vigilante and even more so with the present Wings of Heaven at a more "radio-friendly" musical solution, lightening the sound, making it slimmer, more in line with the sounds of the '80s and the taste of the time, more "light" if you will, but in the sense of less layered or elaborate, certainly not less personal or "high," and anyway never sappy or cloying.

The opening, agile yet sumptuous at the same time, of "Days of no trust" immediately makes clear what was just said, in the fully successful attempt to tailor a brilliant melodic and AOR suit with which to dress the elegant and emphatic style typical of Magnum so that the doors of the American market would open to them, for an applause-worthy piece replicated by all-I mean-all the subsequent pieces of the album where one moves from emphatic, almost dark tones, choirs of clear Queen matrix ("Wild Swan" in this sense is chilling, and "One step away" is no less), to more carefree hits like "Start Talking Love", along with the inevitable ballad, "It Must Have Been Love", also original and in full Magnum style (and therefore not a slow song fit for Top Gun and to serve as the background for girls' posters, so to speak...), up to the final and long "Don't Wake the Lion (Too Old to Die Young)", which in its 10 minutes caresses almost all the typical nuances of their sound, with changes of atmosphere and an epic flavor to the core, but never "gushing" and resulting in ostentatious, if you get what I mean.

Here, this is Wings of Heaven. For those who are a bit familiar with the genre, we are not talking about Survivor (excellent, of course), Foreigner, Toto, Journey... here there is the northern wind blowing over Celtic lands, among ancient ruins, warming spirits and carrying the echo of remote stories, and not a convertible speeding on the highways of California between the palm trees and the waves ridden by surfers: here is the regal sound of Magnum, a whole different story...