THE MAGIC NUMBERS
The Magic Numbers
EMI
· Songs of brotherly and sisterly love.
Does it ever creep you out when brother and sister musical acts sing love songs to one another? The harmonizing of "oohs" and "aahs" takes on biblical connotations and always sounds more sinister than it should. A person can’t help but imagine the commingling of male and female vocals as being an offshoot to a deeper, unspoken lust. When the duo is blood-related, well, that line gets blurry. It’s the same sort of feeling I get whenever I watch the Michael Jackson video where he’s seducing little sis’ Latoya with his penetrating dance moves.
The Magic Numbers are a London-based quartet composed of two pairs of brothers and sisters. They’re close (a little too close) and play delightful romantic pop music that’s both catchy and dreamy with all the lighthearted yearning you’d expect from a perfectly constructed love song. "Long Legs" is as potent as Cupid’s arrow and "Which Way To Happy" clobbers you with what could be an apology or Valentine depending on the mood you’re in. It’s all one big hug fest – unicorns and candy hearts – and their self-titled album borders on becoming a Freudian case study. Every song downright begs for the listener to love them (or each other – it’s all very Flowers in the Attic).
Most of the songs can be interpreted as Greek tragedy with the siblings sharing breathy lyrics like "She don’t love me like you," or "I never wanted to love you but that’s OK, but darling when I see you, I see me," or a chorus consisting of "It won’t hurt to find love in the wrong place," with a full-on glockenspiel solo. Read into it what you will.
Ick-factor aside (or repressed deep into the subconscious, more like it), these are harmless love notes and mellow, breezy melodies that capture the feeling of being smitten – hopefully with a third party who doesn’t share the same surname.
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