ÜDÜ ẀÜDÜ

I've been traveling on the Magma train for a good little while now, and I can safely say what is and is not normal for one of their albums. No, the atmosphere and mood is not always centered on dark, brooding obedience and martial, terse anger. It is not always bass-driven and call-and- response. The vocals and songs don't always begin quietly and sway between calm and climax. What you are definitely going to hear in most any Magma song (if you split them between separate tracks) is a heavy reliance on repetition and classical, slow building progression. Yes, there are times when the songs will abruptly whip between one idea and another, but once they've found a groove, you can predict it won't change very much until the next scheduled stop.

Another series of 'usual suspects' are the usage of the Piano. It's the underlying theme in a majority of their tracks. Brass instruments come in from time to time, and they're lovely when they do. Keyboards are rarely implemented, but they do use some nice Rhodes piano. There's a heavy emphasis on bass guitar and percussive interplay. Which leads me to the one primary strike against the group ? they aren't truly melody-oriented. Their songs are built on rhythms and grooves, which unfortunately aren't all that diverse. Now that we've given ourselves a recap of what makes the group's collective works similar, let's discuss why Udu Wudu is different. The repetition and piano droll is still present, and so is the martial order and subservience ideology. But at the same time, they incorporate funk and upbeat vibrancy to the floorplan. Does it work? Well, it certainly does on the beginning value of the album. The title track is one of the best, most misrepresentative song in their collection. It's not that this is wildly different from their formula (which yes, it is a formula by this time). It's tribal, brassy, and picturesque (Picasso eat your heart out.) I can't handle the disjointed nature of it much longer, though. At this point my mind is begging me for something more, how should I put it, musical.

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