Recognise the vocals on Exmagician? Then you’ve probably heard Cashier No.9 before.
Danny Todd and James Smith, the brains behind the now defunct latter, have since abracadabra-ed themselves into the former.
For their latest trick, after last year’s ‘Kiss That Wealth‘ EP, they’ve pulled out of their top hat a muscular debut album, ‘Scan The Blue‘. (All forced puns intended.)
For anyone not au fait with the Belfast duo’s musical lineage, at least half of it anyway, over a decade ago Todd was a member of techno tripping Alloy Mental, a whole gene pool and a few hundred decibels away from the West Coast-cum-Madchester slinks of Cashier No.9 that soon followed.
Compare ‘Gotta Love‘s ossified beats with 6%’s cotton daubs respectively for the starkest example. The relationship between the late Niners (who bred the solitary but peachy ‘To The Death Of Fun‘) and the living Exmagician, however, is more close-knit. First cousin kinship kind of thing. The love of guitars is still there, along with enough razzamatazz production to make you think you’re occasionally listening to some abstruse late-60s psychedelic bunch.
As if to hammer home that this record really is the heralding of a new phase for Todd and Smith, the onset of opener ‘Kiss That Wealth‘ is a noisy siren-like hoot. Mercifully, it gives way to a more familiar blues-style chug and a shout-along worthy of Primal Scream any day.
It’s unknown whether or not they were sponging films for inspiration while writing ‘The Rot Set In‘. If they were, one suspects it was Austin Powers; a close of the eyes and the velvety legs of Mike Myers can be seen sneaking along inside its grooves every time. On ‘Bend With The Wind‘, the frantically taught rhythm gives way in the chorus to the breeziness of The Beatles at their most loved-up – big harmonies and all – while Todd and Smith’s penchant for colourful melodies and dulcet “oohs” and “ahhs” laps over on to ‘Place Your Bets‘.
Even on quieter moments, like ‘Smile To The Gallery‘ and ‘Feet Don’t Fail‘ – despite the latter’s “I know life goes on, even though it seems it doesn’t” momentary despair – the feeling that a jolly time was had by all in making the album pervades. In fact, it was produced by just themselves and a friend.
The blithe apogee peaks in ‘Job Done‘ and it might even have additional health benefits, being nigh on impossible not to want to jump up and down on the spot for its four minute duration. After all the effort that’s been put in so far, forgiveness is duly meted out for eponymous and last track ‘Scan The Blues‘s appropriation of The Dream Academy‘s ‘Life In a Northern Town‘. Perhaps, in the end, all the Belfast friends are trying to do is drum up their own life in a Northern Irish town tale.
If a drop of swinging psychedelia with a few softer edges is your niche, because it’s not everyone’s, then to cut short the winsome words of the recently deceased (and technically now ex-magician himself) Paul Daniels, you’ll like this.
