Artist: Magnificent, The
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2011
Runtime: 60:13
Rating: 4/5
The Magnificent is an intriguing melodic rock odyssey backed by a crew of hugely talented, next-generation musicians from Scandinavia. One thing ties them together: a deep love for the legacy of AOR and melodic rock.
Once you lay out the musical backgrounds of the people involved in The Magnificent project, it all suddenly makes perfect sense. We’re talking members of Leverage, Circus Maximus and Brother Firetribe. The project is driven by two main men: the excellent Norwegian vocalist Michael Eriksen (Circus Maximus), whose vocal chops recently helped the prog crew Pagan’s Mind get through their joint European tour with Symphony X, and the excellent Finnish guitarist and chief arranger Torsti Spoof (Leverage). Anyone who knows Circus Maximus and Leverage knows that both bands have always shown a serious knack for crafting tightly catchy, melodic choruses that march right through classic AOR territory. Brother Firetribe even named one of their records “Fake Metal” because of this kind of musical flirting.
The only thing that’s still metal about this album is the production, which cranks the guitar lines up so far that they make up the bulk of the backdrop behind the sound (a massive wall of riffs). The keyboards are definitely woven into that wall, but they only get to stand on equal footing in the verses, or in sections where the riff fades out in a closing “fade out” (a classic trick for building up the intensity of the mood). The album doesn’t bring a musical revolution, since it comes from the typical Scandinavian melodic rock platform, whose German counterparts you could find in projects like Place Vendome or Unisonic.
Eriksen is a one-of-a-kind vocalist. In places, especially in the chorus melodies when he climbs higher in his range, he comes across with an explosive, authoritative melodic power close to the classic voice of Joey Tempest (Europe), while his remarkable versatility and polished vocal character hold up confidently in every register. That clean, melodically refined voice is the main carrier of The Magnificent’s melodies and the key element in how compact those melodies feel. Needless to add, Eriksen’s lead lines in the choruses are masterfully backed by layered vocal harmonies, which effectively stretch the reach of the catchy moods the songs capture.
Since all the musicians in The Magnificent come from the classic Scandinavian rock school, the instrumental middle sections, as well as all the transitional ornaments, are shaped in the glow of classicism. There isn’t a speck of blues or anything drawing on jazz in The Magnificent. They follow the typical European reach of the melodic rock stereotype. Everything sits within a framework of properly tuned tonalities. The melodic development of the lead motifs is predictable in advance. Still, The Magnificent easily bridge this “proverbial genericness” by creating effective, intense atmospheres that leave a feeling of realness, for which they can thank the masterful production. As expected, the instrumental middle sections are often seasoned with ultra-fast solos, many of them tossed out in a crossfire between keyboards and guitar.
A real veil of hope washes over the album, hitting its emotional peaks in chorus melodies loaded with a charge of proven, grabby bombast. The guys pull this off masterfully through a graduated build-up of atmosphere toward its climax, as summed up by the chorus “crescendo” of every single track. An example of such superior catchiness is captured in the song Bullets, or later on in Tired Of Dreaming. The Magnificent achieve this effect through a deep contrast between the verse, where the vocal delivery often rests on a melancholic lead keyboard motif, and the later expansion of bombast in a melodically well-crafted chorus.
This is an album for everyone who likes Leverage, Platitude, Brother Firetribe, as well as the prog metallers Circus Maximus. The compositions are polished to a high-quality level, and the album doesn’t sag for even a moment across its running time. You can’t escape the feeling of reheated lukewarm soup, but that was never the album’s aim anyway. What clearly lifts it above the average is the elegance of the songwriting from the talented crew behind “The Magnificent”, with choruses that hit on the first listen, and a superb sense for building up those grabby moods. All of that is backed by excellent instrumental execution, commanded by a masterful, top-notch melodic vocal. “The Magnificent” is thus the title of a true Scandinavian melodic rock theater, and let’s hope it gets a studio successor in the years to come.
Lineup
Michael Eriksen – vocals, backing vocals
Torsti Spoof – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, bass guitar on track no. 9
GUEST MUSICIANS
Rolf Pilve – drums
Sami Norbacka – bass guitar
Jukka Karinen – keyboards
Antony Parviainen – backing vocals
Mats Haugen – guitar, bass guitar, keyboards on track no. 3
Tommy Jacksonville – drums on track no. 3
Tuomas Heikkinen – guitar on tracks no. 5, 7 and 12
Production
Torsti Spoof
Tracklist
1. Holding On To Your Love
2. Cheated By Love
3. Memories
4. Angel
5. Satin & Lace
6. Love`s On The Line
7. Bullets
8. Smoke & Fire
9. Tired Of Dreaming
10. If It Takes All Night
11. Lost
12. Harvest Moon
