VELVET THUNDER

The name Nick Magnus may well have escaped many people, but might be familiar to fans of The Enid or Steve Hackett’s solo work, as he was an early member of the former in 1976, and was a guitarist in the latter’s band for some years. He also did a whole host of session work (of wildly variable quality!) in the mid-1980s, but since then has gone on to release several albums under his own name. This is the latest and, typically for him, is a conceptual affair – telling a mostly literal tale of piracy, adventure and tragedy which is fairly engaging as a story, it must be said, and with some roots in true stories from history. Pub quiz aficionados can even learn a useful fact or two from the informative booklet supplied.

The ‘strange inheritance’ of the title is a large, old wooden chest bound with iron which is delivered mysteriously to the narrator, which is found to contain items as varied and disparate as a pouch of old coins, half a walnut shell, two playing cards, a pair of sticks bound with snakeskin and, most bizarre of all, a dead, stuffed parrot. Which may or may not have been merely stunned, and pining for the fjords… Anyhow, the album commences with some narration to explain this set up, with the opening An Almost Silent Witness being the longest track at around ten minutes. It’s an odd track, and not just because it is told in the first person by the ex-parrot, reminiscing of the years of adventure on the high seas that he has seen. Musically it is also an odd duck (or should that be odd parrot), as it contains elements of rock, folk, blues and oddly vintage music evoking piracy in the mind’s eye. It also features Steve Hackett as a guest. On harmonica.

It should be explained at this point that almost all of the music on the album is performed by Magnus himself, mainly on keyboards and an array of synthesizer-generated instruments – as someone who made his name as a guitarist, he bafflingly plays no guitar at all according to the credits. He may replicate the instrument via the synthesiser, as the other guitarist listed, John Greenwood, is credited on only one track. It’s impressively put together given that almost solo instrumentation (with guest vocalists utilised), with the orchestration particularly well done. It does lack the organic feel of a real band, however, to these ears.

The music is a little hit and miss, with standouts including the moving Philadelphia (a woman’s name, not the city), the rollicking Blood Money, the lively cut and thrust of Black And Scarlet. and the excellent closing To Whom It May Concern, tying the narrative together. It does get let down a little by the breadth of its own stylistic palette to some extent, however, struggling at times for an identity which isn’t quite there. Four Winds – the second longest track – is an eight minute instrumental which, given its orchestrally arranged nature, would have made an effective bridging track at half that length but ends up sagging somewhat. Elsewhere, the multi-faceted Welcome To The Island contains a powerful tribal percussive section bookended by a horn-driven soul sound which fails to convince in its lack of power and presence. There are more hits than misses, but things could definitely have been tightened up a little more in the songwriting and arranging departments to my own taste.

Overall, this is an entertaining record, The story harks back to the glory days of the literal concept, or the ‘rock opera’ – although some more short narration in between tracks would have emphasised that side of it more. Musically as well it has much to recommend it for the most part, and is beautifully packaged in a triple fold digipak with sumptuous booklet. It just doesn’t quite hit that bar to make you want to revisit it often, which is a little frustrating as the whole buccaneering raconteur premise of it really attracted me to it. It’s certainly worth investigating some more of his output, as there is certainly potential in abundance here. Altogether though, it can’t get higher than a Pieces Of Eight Out Of Ten…