Album Review: Those The Brokes by The Magic Numbers

The Magic Numbers' sunshine pop has always been deceptive. Bright and glittery are its surfaces - all those chiming guitars, perky basslines and sugar-sweet harmonies - but its lyrics are much murkier, all broken relationships and brimstone. This album's title, Those the Brokes, and sentiments like those of Carl's Song ("I loved you best when you weren't here to hold") suggest the clouds haven't dispersed.

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What does the Next Big Thing do in the age of the Internet, when their debut is praised beyond reason upon its release, but by the time they release their second album a year later, they've already faded from memory, replaced by a new sensation that truly did have some buzz on the internet? That's the question facing the Magic Numbers and their 2006 sophomore set, Those the Brokes, an album released just a shade later than a year after their eponymous debut, but for all the attention paid to it, it might as well have been released half a decade later. The debut was praised for being a sweet revival of the sun-kissed sounds of such breezy folk-pop bands as the Mamas & the Papas, a breath of fresh air, something that sounded like nothing else out there. The problem with being celebrated for being out of fashion is that when the fashions move on and you don't, you're left behind wondering why everybody has changed -- and that's what's happened with the Magic Numbers.

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