MAGNUM: The Eleventh Hour ! (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

"The Eleventh Hour!", Magnum's fourth album, arrives in stores a year after its predecessor, the excellent "Chase The Dragon". In spite of the very honourable ranking of the latter in the charts (17th), Jet Records shows its stinginess by ensuring a pitiful marketing of the new product and refuses the combo a renowned producer, thus forcing them to fend for themselves. Tony Clarkin will take his responsibilities by producing the album himself and Jet Records will lose the British band.

Rodney Matthews remains faithful to the band and once again ensures a remarkable work endowed with a particularly dark evocative power that can be found throughout the titles of the opus. The musical atmosphere is heavy and the lyrics are in tune. "The Eleventh Hour" is more progressive than its older brother while being almost as muscular. In fact, this album will be the only one in the combo's discography that will combine these two tendencies in such an advanced way. No FM shudders, no cheerful titles, no friendly radio attempts to the program, except possibly 'Hit And Run'. We are dealing with dark, progressive hard rock with recognisable melodies.

Contrary to "Chase The Dragon", no track will remain in minds, certainly due to the lack of immediate impact of the melodies, to the more experimental side of the song structures. "The Eleventh Hour!" can be appreciated over time. As a result, this opus is one of the rare forgotten Magnum albums. The deplorable promotion and the end of the NWOBHM also of course contributed to its low impact at the time. Too bad for 'The Prize', 'The Great Disaster', 'Vicious Companions', 'The Word' or 'Young And Precious Souls' in particular, which make this opus an object not to be allowed to get dusty in your disco.

Even if "The Eleventh Hour!" is quite atypical in Magnum's discography, it remains a work of choice and deserves just a little attention to be appreciated at its true value. - Official website

MAGNUM

THE ELEVENTH HOUR !

AUTRE LABEL

ROCK