Sunburned Hand of the Man coupled a big increase in their fanbase with a string of relatively mediocre recordings. Magnetic Drugs was great and the unpredictability of their recordings is always interesting (like the self-titled pseudo-bootleg), however the group hasn't really found a spot and just hit it. And their most widely available release (Rare Wood on Spirit of Orr) is probably the weakest of the lot, showing a lack of focus musically as they try to integrate vocals and lyrics. Well, finally they give us what we want.
No Magic Man is a 54-minute CD (actual CD) only available by mail order from the Arthur Magazine label Bastet (either alone or free with a subscription to Arthur), and it is essential to those interested in the band. The most prominent element of the CD is the wacky/zany dialogue samples, with much knob twiddling for trippy changes in pace and tone. However, the strength of the album is its wicked funk grooves and trancey drone-outs.
Within the album's first five minutes, the band shows off two of its tightest moments yet. After the first bit of dialogue sample fuckupsmanship, organ and flute give flight to "The 1st Degree." After that riff disintegrates into a clammoring hell of percussion (complete with some poor soul burning for all eternity), the band outdoes itself with "Flying Colours," as the drums and bass drive forward hard with sax and other stuff skronking along the edges. And that's only the first five minutes.
The album's title track, "No Magic Man," stretches out for a fourteen minute long folk/raga tryp. The keyboard plays a circular melody, keeping the song together, as the guitar intertwines itself around it, playing serpentine riffs that never go the same direction twice. The rest of the players improvise overtop, from clanging on pots and making a bass-drum stomp to chanting/whining and adding countermelody. Considering how freakish and noisy it is, it's oddly soothing.
The whine-like chanting becomes a focus of the music at the beginning of "Yer Own Eyes & the Number None." However it works very well here (unlike Rare Wood). The vocals are relatively low in the mix and are melded with a really strong bass part, playing a similar melody to the vocals for maximum symbiosis. The song mutates into a free jazz skronk/funk jam with the 70s boogie guitar playing very short, staccato notes as a sax wails around the space, creating a very lively, dense sound.
The album closes with very heavy psychedelic rock in the song "Gather 'Round" which (at first) sounds more like it should be coming from Comets on Fire than Sunburned Hand of the Man. The drumkit is given a workout as a scorching guitar creates a thick wall of sound. As always, the success of this tangent only inspires the band to go off on another, as the guitarist moves to more back-and-forth groove as the band loses energy, slowing down the beat, the sound fading to the crackling of a campfire.
With the great grooves the band finds on these recordings (crap, I didn't even mention "Serpent's Wish" which is probably the best of the lot), No Magic Man is a fitting rival for Jaybird, Wild Animal, and Headdress as best Sunburned Hand of the Man release.
