Magician’s Red are a band from Finland formed by Kalle Mattila in 2019, and their mission statement from the outset was something which appealed to my musical instincts, in that they wished to pay homage to classic progressive music without being stuck in that period, something I like to see and hear, moving forward with a sound instead of merely reproducing it.
They released an instrumental EP in 2020 entitled There’s No Need To Fear, and this was followed in 2022 by their debut album, Threshold, written during the pandemic when, like so many other acts, they were forced to take a break from live performances.
Come May 2024, we have the sophomore album, Endless Yearning, and the lineup on this one differs from the debut. Mattila is the lead vocalist, except for the second and fifth track, guitarist, flautist, and saxophonist, whilst Otso Puolakka is on bass & vocals, Taneli Mikkola is on keys, trumpet, and supporting vocals on tracks two & five, with the drummer & vocalist Konsta Puro completing the band. There are a couple of guests, Alex Mikkola performs a guitar solo on the second track, and Aaro Lehtovaara plays bassoon, so we have plenty of scope on this album for some nice symphonic pastoral rock music. Do we get it? Well, what we do get is an album with some pretty bleak lyrics. Before discussing, a word about availability – there is no physical release of this, but you can purchase it digitally on iTunes & Amazon. Incidentally, one of the arguments for a label snapping this lot up and getting us a physical release is the stunning cover, which has really captured my imagination.
This album is not without ambition. Five pieces of music at over 52 minutes, two of them epic length, and the final track a super-epic over twenty minutes long.
We open with Defeated, starting the lyrically challenging and difficult listen, but an important one, dealing as it does with chronic illness and its devastating impact upon self-worth, living conditions, and career. I have said before on this site that I have suffered from mild anxiety all my adult life, but the story recounted here is far more intense and serious, the lyric “as a man, you’re not supposed to feel this way” especially knowing in a world where such illness is still seen as a weakness instead of something which requires sympathy, understanding, and ultimately addressing in a medical setting. The opening musically is very Floydian with the organ dominating. All of it is very much in the minor key mood wise, suitably reflecting the lyrics, veering between some harder riffs, some work which reminds one strongly of Animals, all of which is performed with aplomb.
Mr Hudson is the first of the epic tracks and references a teacher, not one you would remember for kindness and empathy, but a brute in a small school setting who took away the writer’s childhood and health. I have embedded this track below, and you will note the bucolic opening reflecting the small rural school, extremely pretty, the sense of which is blown away by the school bell and replaced by a sort of psych funk groove and riffs with vocals carrying a post punk anger. A mellotron appears providing us with more of a classic prog feel, early Genesis, an angry Hammond a la ELP, Tull flute swirling, so a smorgasbord of sound, with the guitar solo very much in the mould of Barre, and very good, and from here on in, we are listening to music which is very much taken from the TAAB & Passion Play book.
Summer is the Saddest Season is also ten minutes plus. It is another commentary on a clearly chronic condition, relieved only by watching Star Trek Voyager on the television banishing away the coldness inside despite the warmth outside. The vocals really are quite searching, and there are some very pretty melodies to begin, the mellotron adding to the mood very well. The trumpet solo when it comes cries out, though, the inner mood alongside the acoustic guitar which tells its pain. When Voyager is on, there is a sunny, almost commercial, rock track. The bassoon takes the track into a brief classical interlude before the core sorrow takes charge again, a guitar solo crying out.
Someone I Can’t Have is the shortest track here, just a tad over five minutes. It is achingly sad, a tale of unrequited love, a boy who has a similar interest in prog (Duke’s Travel), but who is dating a girl and, thus, unavailable to the writer, something he can never have. I think it is the best piece of music here, a track which has the makings of a commercial foundation for the band, and I have embedded it below.
The uber-epic, The Years of Hell, closes the album, and it is a commentary on the pain, horror, and almost criminal feeling of realisation of a tender teenage boy realising he is attracted to other males, feeling wretched. I hope this is a cathartic lyric Mattila has written, expurgating that teenage sense of guilt as an adult, and, indeed, he states in the song that looking back it was all so silly and pointless. The lead vocal sounds remarkably like Malcolm Galloway from Hats Off Gentlemen, It’s Adequate, there are some nice harmonies in parts, Hammond dominating in parts in a track which has as its reference point, I think, classic Supertramp interspersed with both English & American classic rock, lighter psych, electronic blues, dystopian rock, so a strange brew, but it works far better than one might expect, the extended mid-section collaborative instrumental very good, the drums and percussion especially potent, the guitar work very strong with some nice blues infused licks and pianos/keys taking the lead. The catharsis asserts itself in the closing segment, with the realisation the author can be himself, the real work starts, and as the track closes, the listener genuinely wishes him well.
This album is not an easy listen, certainly thematically, and I hazard a guess that it wasn’t an easy one to make. Whether this had anything to do with the wholesale personnel change, I know not, but this incarnation is a tight band, and this is a sonically positive sounding record and it does, as noted above, thankfully end on a positive note and one hopes that this will be a springboard for something for the band, because there are definitely melodious tendencies in here, and I think they can take this a lot further.