"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. "Love Is a Game", which isn't a Michelle Branch/Santana cover) the melodies, though lovely, are sometimes interchangeable. The songwriting falls a couple of times too many into timid generalities about love and loss (cf. 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". 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". 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. 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. Ornate, country-tinged guitar fills enliven several songs, particularly "Long Legs". Published October 1st 2003 by Orion Publishing Group. 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. Billy Pickles has a winning way with numbers in book five in the Magical Children series. To say the Magic Numbers are instantly accessible is not to say they're simplistic. If the reference points are a tad obvious, so is the song's appeal.
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. As the hook, lead singer Romeo Stodart reaches for Chris Martin's now-ubiquitous falsetto- "forev er lost - and shit, that kinda works, too. 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. Newest single "Forever Lost" reveals the Numbers' world-dominating intentions right away. 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. And, contrary to that genre's built-in assumptions, it doesn't even suck. Instead, they've created what will doubtless stand as 2005's best AAA record. The Magic Numbers could have waxed nostalgic for the folk-pop equivalent of the nouveau new-wave and gotten the easy 6.7. 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. (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. 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.
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