MOTIONS OF DESIRE

Sorry chaps, there's nothing 'progressive' about this album. This is just another attempt to resurrect classic 'hard rock' from the 1970s, with various bits of prog keyboard chucked in for good measure.

Somewhat cryptically, the band announce on their CD's sleeve that "CHANGE, closely backed up by themes in the next songs, today probably are [sic!] the most representative as the framework for the future of the band". Heaven knows what they are trying to tell us here, but it's obvious Magic Pie will need to go through a few changes before they actually play the music of the future.

The album opens with a 'cascade' of fast notes played by lead guitar, organ, bass and drums in perfect unison - a figure which will be repeated so often in the course of the piece it soon gets tiring. The band make extensive use of the same technique (of playing rapidly in unison), but with different cascades, in at least two other tunes, and this inevitably distracts the listener from the tunes themselves.

Another defect is the band's habit of singing no less than three of the anthem-like climaxes to their tunes in chorus, with an extra vocalist belting out variations on the main melody in the background. All these vocals turn out to be Highly Earnest, about 'hope for a better tomorrow', distinguishing between 'illusion and reality' and such. I once read a review which describes MOTION OF DESIRE as 'Kansas meets Uriah Heep' - so you get the picture. I thought Frank Zappa had dealt the over-the- top vocals of 'idealistic' stadium rock a fatal blow with the parodies included on SHEIK YERBOUTI and other thirty-year old albums. Apparently I was wrong. 'Does humor belong in music?' Maybe someone should ask Magic Pie.

Someone should also tell the band some of their lyrics do not exactly mean what they expect them to mean, e.g. 'I will lead you to a better future/I will give shelter to the poor/Give me your hand and I'll show you the door'. These words are set to one of the catchiest melodies on this disc, but didn't a single soul in the recording studio realize 'showing someone the door' means kicking them out?

Such defects are a shame, really, as there is quite a bit of promising material on MOTIONS OF DESIRE. The title song, for example, is truly majestic and almost Springsteen-like in its sweep, it carries the listener away. Something similar could be said about the final tune, 'Dream Vision' (in spite of its pedestrian vocals): great power chords, infectious rhythm. All over the album you will find exciting, truly inspired keyboard solos by Gilbert Marshall.

But someone should definitely beg Kim Stenberg, the leader of Magic Pie, to keep his 'heavy' guitar embellishments in check!