MAGDALEN GREEN - MAGDALEN GREEN E.P.

I had a lot of problems getting into this band at first, largely because I kept seeing them in half empty echoey concert venues at which the played spitited performances but where the sound didn't allow what they had to come out. Then they played a couple of outdoor and indoor gigs and it all fell into place. Here we have the finest of Dundee folk-rock bands and this is the new EP from that line-up.
Opening with the title track, we immediately get what the band is all about - story-telling lyrics delivered with melody and passion, vocals upfront but the band mixed to perfection so that the balance of song and instrumenatation is maintained. There's a definite seventies flavour to the tune and the guitar work is superb although it's really a stirring band performance. "Blackbird" is an even more anthemic number and positively oozes seventies from every pore as the stirring song ensues, with some magical lead vocals, captivating choruses and strident playing, with nods to as unlikely bedfellows as Lone Star (the '70's band!) and folkier Led Zep. For the five minute "Son Of Lucifer", we do go more acoustic as the song and its story are told by a vocalist who really makes it all come alive, as the arrangements twist and turn, fly and soar, from laid-back bongos and distant guitars, to the urgent impassioned vocal sections, on a song that has atmosphere pouring out of every crevice by the shedload. The intro to "Sarah-Jane" is pure seventies Led Zeppelin and the song isn't that far behind either, if you think of the more restrained stuff on an album like "Led Zep III", with its rolling guitar leads, wailing harmonica, lower register Plant-esque vocals and the rhythmic swing so beloved by that band, all in all a track that could have been some lost seventies classic but which sounds every bit as superb as it stands right now and, for me, the best track on the EP, although it's a close run thing between this and "Blackbird". The near six minute "Hawks And Doves" starts with slowly rolling bass and bongos, delicate guitar and restrained vocals as the song story commences and once again, you are captivated by the song, its delivery and its arrangement. Around three minutes in, instead of breaking out into a more rock oriented manner, it goes into a sort of football chant style multi-vocal chorus as harmonica wails away and things take a weird direction, and this is how it stays to the rest of the track, not something I have to say, that I particularly liked and, for me, not a great track by any means. But, that aside, the rest of it is fantastic, and this is, yet again, a unique band on the Dundee Scene, who you realy should catch, both live and on this CD.

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