ALBUM REVIEW: MAGNUM – Here Comes the Rain

I simply love the opener to Magnum’s latest: ‘Run Into The Shadows’ which has a stripped back almost ‘Storytellers’ component to the sound and an edge in the guitar. When Bob’s vocal comes in I’m transported back in time to the first time I saw the band live at Sheffield’s Leadmill a secret warm-up show for the ‘Wings of Heaven’ Tour. It’s a song that is instantly recognisable and there could only be one band on earth that can sweep you up like this! It’s gold!

The almost Beatle-esque element to the mid-tempo title track ‘Here Comes the Rain’ amidst a wonderfully orchestrated set of strings and gently chugging guitar before the lift into a cloudy chorus of midnight skies.  This is sounding good…

There’s a real melancholy to the opening verse of the wonderfully orchestrated slow number ‘Some Kind Of Treachery’ which comes to life for the refrain then drops back again. It’s the light and shade that is part of Magnum’s make-up and as stirring as you’d expect.

‘After the Silence’ ups the tempo to embrace the more modern Magnum sound that Tont has been playing with these last few decades. It’s still has the beating heart of the band we all love but as slicker sheen to the production and a fiercer beat. The orchestration that underlines Bob’s vocals just makes it soar.

‘Blue Tango’ of course we all heard last year when it was released as the first single in November. It’s a good old fashioned rocker with an almost Boogie element that would make it a perfect live song – there’s so much energy ad it all just seems to grow with each play.

I put the review aside at this point intending to come back to it a few days before the January 12th release as I continued to play the album. Sadly before I managed to pick it up again I learnt of the death of Tony Clarkin, all too young at 77. I’d not been able to put pen to paper for a week after that even though I was adamant that the next thing I would do was complete the review. I only got to interview Tony a couple of times over the years but each time felt like talking to an old friend, but not just any old friend, someone who had written a good part of the soundtrack of not just my teenage years but the last couple of decades too. Tony was always wonderful to talk to and so passionate about his craft.  For a week I had part of the lyrics to ‘Don’t Wake the Lion’ haunting me…

Too old to die young
Too big to cry
Too old to die young
To say goodbye

I picked up the review again relistening to ‘Blue Tango’ it was a good choice for first single and one I’m sure many would be looking forward to hearing on the postponed April 2024 Tour which sadly will now not take place.

Tony’s songwriting always intrigued me and we always touch on inspiration when we spoke. For this album he touched on that subject again: “When I start to write the songs, I don’t have any fixed ideas in my head. I probably play a bit of guitar or mess around on a keyboard, sometimes I read a book and usually this gives me a place to start. But to put this into words that people can understand I just fiddle about for hours hoping something inspires me. Being a musician can be a very isolating life in that you don´t live and work like normal people do. But then I start writing and that’s MY world, that´s where I belong.“

Clarkin spent more time writing this album because the tour getting delayed due to Covid split his normal writing time into two sections. “I thought this would give me more time to do it, but I found it harder to get into a writing mindset when I was being interrupted by preparing for live shows.”

As far as subject matter is concerned, he doesn’t have a hangup with any particular topic but takes inspiration from all sorts of places. Clarkin: “Over the years hearing maybe some records that were my favourite songs at the time and then only much later did I ever discover that the meaning of the song was totally different to what I thought it was. So I’m sort of protective about explaining the meaning of songs that I’ve written because it can actually spoil a person’s enjoyment of the song, better that they find their own meaning in it.”

I’ve always found that part of the real charm of Magnum’s lyrics – the elemental nature and the universal themes all set in the unique world Clarkin created.

Songs like ‘The Day He Lied’ may lyrically be less open to interpretation but are just as powerful. The second single ‘The Seventh Darkness’ though is just like the Magnum we all love and now but with a twist:

As Tony said: “(There’s) some awesome brass sections courtesy of guest musicians Chris ‘BeeBe’ Aldridge (saxophone) and Nick Dewhurst (trumpet), which lend the song brilliance and shape. The recordings were great fun, especially the moment when Chris’s sax took the lead and my guitar responded. A real highlight on this album!”  You can’t help but agree!

‘Broken City’ feels dark and cold, despondent and mournful and you can’t help but feel the picture of despair painted by Clarkin’s words and Bob’s vocal. It’s clearly a reflection of the world today, of conflict, of destruction and stark and powerful as anything that has come before.

Penultimate track: ‘I Wanna Live’ is the contrast that Magnum do so well, gently building and full of light – almost yearing, it’s all the positive energy you could muster in a song of hope and one of my real standouts here along with the singles and the opener.

Closer ‘Borderline’ brings me to a standstill again. I first head Magnum before I was a teenager and their music has been with me ever since. I’m struck for a moment that this may be the final ‘final’ track on a Magnum album. Over the years there have been so may epics… ‘Borderline’ is another classic that builds and ebbs and flows and sounds wonderful. It’s the only way to close.

With  artwork again designed by Rodney Matthews and a line-up consisting of Catley, Clarkin, keyboardist Rick Benton, bassist Dennis Ward and drummer Lee Morris again we have a beautifully realised Magnum release and a wonderful goodbye. I can’t see Magnum continuing without Tony but I’d be more than happy if Bob and the family did and it would be wonderful to see a tribute to the great man at some stage. Magnum is a band that will always remain in my heart.  Thank you Anthony Michael Clarkin a man who made unique and wonderful music and left us so much behind.