Magnum – Here Comes the Rain Review

Those who yearn for the days of classic rock and roll are those who turn a blind eye to the bands of promise from this time. Magnum, the long-standing hard rockers from the UK, are still plugging away. Guitar music is dead, they say. Clearly not, though the tone taken by Magnum on this, Here Comes the Rain, would suggest it is on life support. Their mega sounds and attempt at adjacent rock opera with the rusted bells and whistles of their heyday bring out a standard and dependable stock of rock numbers. Desolation this, wargames that, their tone and turn of form has not changed in decades and feels the weight of the real world crush it into some state of palatable fashion, as was the case for Jethro Tull last year. Run Into the Shadows is as interesting as it gets – nothing more happens.  

Even then, with Bob Catley still on vocals, the band finds little intensity to spring from and slips into mushy prog rock. With enough depth and heart to carry these songs to around two minutes, it is painful to hear the repetitive pangs and clanks of Run Into the Shadows, along with the rest of these featured tracks, run well past the four-minute mark. Frequently repetitive and emotionless, tacky numbers and all the sluggish horrors of piano ballads filter through Here Comes the Rain. Miserable prog shakings are heard on Some Kind of Treachery, which does commit acts of betrayal to listeners, forcing them to listen to weightless percussion and Europe-like rises of dated stylings. This is the slump Magnum find themselves in now they continue to chase commercial pop, though lack the real charge or style to do anything more than withering, vacant pop numbers. 

Listenable stuff, of course, just dull. The same placid touches are on all these songs, from the singer whose range is gruff days of remembrance to gruff days of remembrance backed by piano. Flat and tiresome turns from Magnum should not be enough to get up in arms about, the small pocket of fans happy with the same rumblings from the band will neither be disturbed nor moved by this one. It is more noise to kill time between life and death – but for those who were born well after their supposed peak, this is a tough nut to crack. Regardless, Magnum has and always will sound like the budget, tacky version of other bands they tried to play ball with. There is no change here, as the repetitive emptiness of The Day He Lied and onwards will show. Even the sudden saxophone in The Seventh Darkness does nothing.

All roads lead to Birmingham and this is where Magnum potter around on yet another snooze of an album. Everything from their cover to their style rings through like a choose-your-own-adventure book. The shock passing of Tony Clarkin may have the Magnum faithful peering in to hear his final efforts – though not much here is that much out of the ordinary. Whiny prog rock moments which the band was prattling out decades ago. No change there. An album where each song is indistinguishable from the rest. Enjoy your slop, prog rock piggies. Tuck into the trough of Magnum, they will be back again. If not, enjoy the endless pile they have in their locker. Whatever spark they had which got them to this point has faded and did long before Here Comes the Rain ever flopped out.