This review doesn’t include Dick Van Dyke or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, no Magic Car are the most interesting 4-piece to emerge from Nottingham in the last …, well, ever.
“Yellow Main Sequence” is their first release on their own, following the 2002 release “European Punk” LP with Scott 4. YMS shows that Magic Car firmly sway towards that southern country sound. The LP opens up with ‘Too Lonesome Cowboy’, featuring vocals from both Hazel Atkinson and Phil Smeeton, this sparse track talks of a cowboy looking for a connection and finding nothing, just his reflection in the muddy pool.
Subsequent tracks are a little more jaunty, especially the ‘Three Cornered Hat’, well I suppose its better than just two! The fragile ‘Piano Wire’ is an ethereal meandering of strings and harmonised vocals. ‘Honey Babe’ … “I simply love you!” has more than a nod to bluegrass, with a little difference.
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Although the highlight of the album is “Shiny Cattle”. A throbing pulsating triumph of a song, on a wonderful triumph of an album. “Yellow Main Sequence” is an album you will want to listen to again once it has finished.
If you liked this, try:
Scott 4 & The Magic Car – “European Punks”
Gram Parsons – “Grevious Angel”
Beck – “Odelay”
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