I stayed in this afternoon. I was looking through my cd’s
for some music to listen to and I came across an album I had never heard
before. It was still in it’s shrink-wrap. An American friend had kindly sent me
several albums a few years ago and somehow, I had managed to overlook this one
until today. It is by Edward Sharpe &
The Magnetic Zeros, and called Here. It
was the second album by this group and was released in 2012. It reached number
5 on the US charts but didn’t make much impression in the UK. I must admit I
had never heard of this band before. I think the first thing to know about the
group is that there is no such person as Edward Sharpe. Just like David Bowie invented Ziggy Stardust the name was invented as
the alter-ego of the front man and songwriter Alex Ebert.
I give this album a definite thumbs up. After one listen
and then listening to various tracks on youtube I really like this band. They
seem to be quite a large ensemble of seven band members with eight others also
playing on the album. There are male and female vocalists and backing singers. The
lead vocalists appear to be Alex Ebert and Jade Castinos. There is also a
multitude of instruments played, some of them quite unusual such as didgeridoo,
charango, ronrocco and omnichord. I had never heard of some of those before. To
me the sound is quite like 60’s psychedelia and quite folky.
Some songs such as
That’s What’s Up have a gospel feel
to them. The whole album has a kind of ramshackle spontaneous feel to it which
is part of it’s charm. The themes of the songs seem to be about love and
spirituality which is ideal for an old hippy like me. My favourite songs so far
are the first song Man On Fire, also,
I Don’t Wanna Pray, Mayla and Dear Believer. I’m really pleased I
finally got around to listening to this album today. Don’t take my word for it
though. I have put a video below of them singing one of the
songs in Manchester Cathedral, England and there are many other great videos of
this band on youtube.
2 comments:
Pat, I love this group, I first saw them on a documentary when the whole band went on a train and gave concerts along the way. I saw the film Festival Express with Janis Joplin and friends and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros did the same.
Thanks for your feedback Sofia. I'm glad you like this band. Thanks for taking the time to read my stuff.
Cheers.
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