Archive for June, 2009
Magenta @ The Peel – 300509
by soulcatcher on Jun.01, 2009, under Rock, Uncategorized
My favourite progressive rock band?
Well if you *possibly* remove the ‘progressive metal’ branch of the genre I would say, most probably yes!
Magenta snuck up on me. I’ve been quite into a few bands of this type for a while now and while I’m obviously not die-hard enough to have discovered them until their appearance at The Peel last year, pleasant memories of that performance have stuck with me ever since. In fact I remember mentioning after that gig to a gear-lugging Dan Fry the relatively fresh-faced bass player in the band that I considered that performance to be the best I’d seen there, beating even Richie Kotzen’s electrifying set from a few years back.
Even though I generally live on a slightly edgier side of prog, appreciating the likes of Dream Theater, Symphony X and Redemption far more than the less ‘exciting’ efforts of the likes of Yes and Genesis, and I would classify Magenta, in a lot of cases to be as far from Metal than these bands, I have to say that I never find them to be boring.
I wasn’t mentally track-skipping any of their performance on Saturday night. Sure there are quiet bits but they’re just long enough before a liviler section comes along and before that starts to grate on the ears we’re taking a break again. I realise this level of perfect balance is going to be different for everyone – all I can say is that for me, it’s pretty much spot-on.
Melody is sooooo important to me as well. Hooks are king. I love complex stuff and it’s really rewarding to ‘learn’ to listen to a challenging piece of prog – knowing where all the odd bits are that throw the first-time listener but some bands take this to extremes and forget that a good tune or motif can give an honest ‘life’ to a song and bring it into balance. Not so Magenta.
There are plenty of tricky little bits to keep a moderate prog fan happy but this is tempered by some absolutely gloriously melodic motifs that your granny could join in with. In a good way! 
I could go on for a good while longer talking more about this band but I think I’ve done enough here to recommend it to anyone who likes ‘good’ music. Check out their latest album ‘Metamorphosis’ and believe me when I say, they’re just as impressive live. The Peel is a small venue and while it’s got a reasonably good PA, the sheer quality of this band’s sound in a venue this size was unbelievable.
Check them out live or recorded. Believe me when I say you won’t be sorry.
