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Seid - Magic Handshake CD (album) cover

MAGIC HANDSHAKE

Seid

 

Psychedelic/Space Rock

3.77 | 15 ratings

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ProgShine
4 stars The influence here is obvious to everyone, it's Hawkwind. But it's not a copy and paste kinda of album, which is very common on Prog Rock in our days, this norwegian band have personality.

Space Rock in general bother me a bit, usually the bands just play some nonsense sound that goes nowhere, lot of jams and some ethereal vocals and thats it. That's a space rock album usually. Not here. The song structure matter more.

Vocal melodies are a important deal on Magic Handshake, third album from the band, released by the italian label Black Widow Records in CD and Vinyl.

I confess that I laughed a bit with the beginning of 'Space Pirates Return', but just because that's something you don't listen everyday in a song, after the first 'shock' I surrender myself to their sound.

Like in the delicious 'The True Merry Poppers' and the fuzz heavy overall sound, lots of vocals and an almost pop melody during verses and a crazy bit with synths at the final bit. The band have a very good hand when it comes to write fast passages in a Hard Rock way with good melodies and lots of space synths.

'TrĂ´n' is very much indian music oriented in the intro, but again, it's influence, not just copied sounds and copied formulas. Soon the band enters in a more traditional Prog Rock sound, and more and more the tracks comes alive and well with a lot of vintage keyboards.

'Birds' is a song that I could hear a full brass arrangement on my head to it. They used it, but just in a 'shy' way. It could be even more interesting than already is.

Great guitars, great keyboards, a very good bass tone, a real drum sound (the thing that most annoys me in the present musical productions) and lots of vocals. This album was a surprise for me, but a good one, I wasn't expecting anything good coming from a mix of a norwegian band (country that has no tradition in Space Rock as far as I know) and a dark gothic label. Good for me I was wrong. This is a very good surprise for 2012.

ProgShine | 4/5 |

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