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Album Review
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The Aspen Times, Album Review >>
CD reviews: The latest from bands headed for Aspen
Stewart Oksenhorn
The Aspen Times
Aspen, CO Colorado
ASPEN — Some of the musical acts rolling into the valley over the next few months are bringing not only their instruments, road crews and supplemental oxygen canisters. They've got new albums to pitch, new music to play. Here's a look at what they did on record before they hit the stage.
MarchFourth Marching Band, “Magnificent Beast”
produced by Steve Berlin
You figure that a band with a circus-like stage show — stilt walkers, belly dancers, fire eaters — might neglect the musical side, or at least pay less attention to what they do in the studio. But “Magnificent Beast,” by the Oregon-based MarchFourth Marching Band, succeeds without the visual parade. Even on CD, the horn-heavy MarchFourth comes across as colorful and dynamic. “Magnificent Beast” — produced by Steve Berlin, the saxophonist from Los Lobos — struts through the sounds of India (”Delhi Belly”) and the Latin world (”Sin Camiseta”). But they are at their best when they're at their most inventive: “Lesley Metal” has an off-kilter rhythm that should sound awkward, but instead shows a mastery of beat; “Skin Is Thin” turns the tough trick of being part ballad, part funk, part ‘50s nostalgia trip.
(Strange footnote: “Magnificent Beast” opens with “Lesley Metal.” The wonderful new album by Feist — whose real name is Leslie Feist — is titled “Metals.” Coincidence or extremely obscure and probably pointless marketing maneuver?)
MarchFourth Marching Band plays Belly Up Aspen on Friday, Oct. 21.
10/16/11 >> go there
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