There are many points where Here We Go Magic seemingly ‘go magic’ on their third record. Take ‘Hard To Be Close’: what begins like a Johnny Cash cast-off is clothes-lined by a tricky chord change into an ethereal netherworld, where ‘Paranoid Android’ guitars twitch and burble. Then there’s ‘I Believe In Action’, whose glittery, falsetto flushed middle-eight lifts off quite elegantly, and the lightning-paced transcendence of ‘Make Up Your Mind’; unquestionably the product of some soul-selling sorcery. Maybe it’s Radiohead-producer Nigel Godrich’s golden touch, or maybe it’s just some clever loop-pedal usage, but ‘A Different Ship’ is a magnificent return.
