9.
Magnum – On A Storytellers Night (1985)
1. How Far Jerusalem (6:26)
2. Just Like An Arrow (3:23)
3. On A Storytellers Night (5:00)
4. Before First Light (3:52)
5. Les Mort Dansant (5:48)
6. Endless Love (4:30)
7. Two Hearts (4:24)
8. Steal Your Heart (3:59)
9. All England's Eyes (4:47)
10. Last Dance (3:44)
I've got to hand it to the British -- few did the whole Arena Rock thing better than they did twenty five years ago. While America was on the verge of being enraptured by crap like
Bon Jovi and
Stryper, the U.K. had kickass groups like Magnum to lead the AOR vanguard, and it's telling indeed that they made it to my list here: 1985's
On A Storyteller's Night is one of the decade's arena rock pinnacles, blending
Queen-like theatrical pomp with gorgeous keyboard atmospherics to paint some rather interesting pictures in the heads of prospective listeners, me included!
For starters, look at the album cover by fantasy artist extraordinaire
Rodney Matthews: fu
cking fantastic! It brings to mind all sorts of fantastical allusions, from bards and beasts to those wonderfully darksome yarns that the Brothers Grimm would make famous in their collections.
As for the songs, highlights for me include the anthemic title track (Keep your night light burning!), which builds wonderfully for about a minute and a half before leaping into such a fist pumping calling card, and the strangely medieval 'Les Mort Dansant', groteque yet gallant thanks to the powerful yet emotive voice of lead singer
Bob Catley and keyboardist
Mark Stanway's soundscaping. It's a pretty balanced decimal set all in all however, with certain songs that seemed to have been salivated for radio rotation like the fun yet atypical 'Just Like An Arrow' yet others, such as the mid-tempo kicker 'Before First Light', represented a slightly more restrained, textured approach to late night highway blazing. Not bad either way though!
This was the first and only album that Magnum would record under FM Records, which is rather interesting: the production work (thanks to
Thin Lizzy producer Kit Woolven) is surprisingly immaculate for 1985 and fittingly larger than life for the songs present here. I would have liked to hear a few more records recorded under these conditions, but alas it was not to be.
On that note, although Magnum would go on to release quite a few albums after this one (including one in 2010), I can't really say that they ever cut another record that hit just as many right buttons as
On A Storyteller's Night. It's their claim to fame that happened to hit just the right year in order, and as a result we look back on it as a classic in the oft-ridiculed genre of AOR today: it does everything right for fans of the genre and packs just enough punch in the songwriting department to interest other audiences.
I won't beg or anything, but I consider this essential listening for anyone who wants a taste of the better side of 80's melodic rock. Happy hunting!