Magic Dirt - Beast (Album)
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Hardworking rockers Magic Dirt have recently released not one but two albums. The first, Roky's Room is a 'noise concept album': no vocals or drums just guitar, feedback and screaming. By the band's own admission is unlisenable for most of the population'. The EP Beast is what arrived on my door step. Apparently, it's the tamer of the two but it still hits you more like a brick lobbed out of a mental asylum.
Fans are hailing this a return to the old Magic Dirt pre What Rockstars are Doing today? in which many felt the band had abandoned its roots. This album is still unmistakably the Magic Dirt that has graced our airwaves since the early '90s but less polished and radio-friendly. The mastering is crude and makes no apology; you have to crank this album up loud to appreciate it.
Beast's seven tracks vary between fast paced punk such as 'Bring me the head of.' which borrows the riff of Motley Crue's 'Ace of spades' and darker portraits like the first track 'Horror Me'. This track starts with Adalita's voice swirling around a wall of sound. It climaxes with her screaming creative lyrics like 'how I had to tie a ribbon around a little bird's leg.Present like Bovary's child' and other dark oddities. Great stuff!
Adalita is of course, the centre of this band. She is for me Australia's answer to PJ Harvey. Her lyrics are dark and her vocals are both haunting and powerful. My favourite track is 'Don't Panic' which features her characteristic poetic delivery and a very catchy hook as Magic Dirt seem to be able to write so well.
It's a bit disappointing that when the 'Dirt played my home town of Launceston only about twenty people showed up. I don't expect Beast to really catch on in the mainstream as some of the other 'music industry' slicker albums. However, Magic Dirt of course has a great live pedigree and I'd love to see the raw emotion of these new tracks from the moshpit.
Credit has to be given to Magic Dirt for their effort to search for a fresh direction; in this case a return to their roots. There isn't anything too innovative or outlandish on this release, just some good lyrics and catchy choruses set in heavy rock and that I think is what Magic Dirt fans will want.
