(Locomotive) Total time: 62:02
I humbly kneel before the greatness and majesty of MAGO DE OZ. The guys are GODLIKE. A 9 piece? A cod piece? A masterpiece? A disaster piece? Who needs a bunch of 9 monkeys in boiler suits and masks singing about how shity their lives are, when you can listen to these magnificent 9. (really ? well then direct the royalties to my account and then take your lives) - (plus I can prophesize that the UNMASKED album will happen pretty soon)
They ‘ve been going on since the early 90s and they have been mixing their molten heavy metal with elegant Celtic influences creating a very immaculate and “simply irresistible”combination. Imagine early SKYCLAD partying with IRON MAIDEN and being fronted by a drunken, snotty, whiny, bratty bastard that sounds spot on. He’s the man ! He truly is “the business”!
I forgot to mention that they sing in Spanish, but that is just a slight sort coming. I can understand some Spanish anyway ( I guess that happens when one of your flat mates is Spanish and so is one of your ex’s :P ) so that’s not a big problem, but it has strengthen my resolve to learn the darn language. I suppose they must be going down a storm with all the latino-speaking guys worldwide. I know they’re pretty Big in Spain. Will they be Big in Japan Too? Who knows!
The main thing about MAGO DE OZ is that they are all about FUN! They don’t take themselves seriously and neither should you.
Pushing Play you can hear the rain falling and sirens that break the placid of the night! A silly nod to BLACK SABBATH ? Possibly! After the dancey, Irish-pub intro, all hell breaks loose and starts to party hard, with “Belfast” (originally by Boney M – GODZ of dodgy 80s disco) which sports a violin solo also lifted from BONEY M’s magnum opus “Rasputin” after some funky disco grooves and has another funny little thing going for it, in the fact that it’s being sung both by their singer and a guy that tries too hard to imitate DIO. Hil-fuckin-arious :P Unbelievable.
“La rosa de los vientos” is a reprise of one of the tracks on their GAIA opus. Could as well be a traditional, but then again it might not. It’s seriously one of the most beautiful songs I have heard in a while. Beautiful melodies all the way, really entrancing, and at the very end the way that the voice “breaks”. Ooh, it’s gonna wow all you young horny strumpets, I’m sure. (A word popularized in that stupid pirate movie)
Here I have an announcement to make. Having heard “Guilty of Love”, re titled into “Dame tu Amor” here, (originally by WHITESNAKE – and I am A HUUUUUGE FAN of WHITESNAKE) given the MAGO treatment, in Spanish, hobviously, my life is now complete. I could die now and be a very happy man.
(irrelevant: The eternal Hard-on of a dirty mind :P)
“Mujer Amante” is a bit of a ballad with a majestic feel, clocking slightly above 7 minutes. It’s brooding and soulful. I mean it’s almost bluesy in a very weird way. “Alma”, which roughly translates to soul, is an orchestral reprise again, and it’s simply beautiful. It has mellow parts and then devilish violins take it spiraling up to heaven. “Más que una intención” is “Afraid to shot strangers in disguise”, (at least it’s intro is) :P, but yeah, shortly afterwards it diversifies itself, with pianos and violins taking over. The only thing that concerns me a bit is that the songs after the SNAKE cover have some melancholic overtones, something that “Lady in Black”(originally by URIAH HEEP) now re titled into "Dama Negra" does little to change. Next up is “Todo irá bien” which is their take on “Can’t stop Falling in Love with you”? (Originally By the UB40? I would presume ? – even if I m wrong the money is still going in the correct bank account – so no sweat) which amazingly speeds up after the first half. “Se acabó” is a beautiful instrumental, probably something traditional, followed up by “Hasta que tu muerte nos separe” I can’t figure if it’s “kindly borrowed” by another artist but it’s enjoyable as fuck while being, more up tempo as well, which is reverting.
And to conclude this beautiful 62:02 minute EP (?!?!?!?!?!) which is served as an appetizer before they present us with the second installment of their GAIA opus, we have “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” from the “Wizard of Oz’ movie, sung in English, in a silly but totally adorable, soft, accented, nearest thing to a velvet voice – voice, that shifts to the higher register just before the end. Ah, Bliss! Fuck that! I mean how the fuck, can u not like a band that does that kind of thing and has a website as fucked up, incoherent and in Spanish as http://www.magodeoz.com
Go on, take a look, I challenge you!
The format of this release is a digibook-cd, that also includes a dvd with Mago de oz playing in the studio and an interview. Production wise – It’s perfect. The only think I miss is the wacky covers (notably the 3 paneled “Finisterra” comes to mind) that had depictions, among other things of such oddities as Swans with bell-ends instead of heads, Monks with Venom patches on their hoods, computer mice and power outlets stuck on trees, Christ sporting a Hammer and sickle pin, given hand jobs from young, premiscuous village girls, while holding a bottle of Coke and such other SUBTLE and soul-pleasing imagery. (It really made the “Somewhere in Time” cover look plain in comparison)
I mean how many bands do you know that could have a circumcised Greek self professed metal-god, jamming on the guitar and screaming out the lyrics in Spanish, with his pants round his ankles, on the ledge of a window, 3 floors above the ground, in Scotland, early on the morning of the19th of October 2004, (his B-DAY) after having consumer whatever alcoholic beverage could be found on the premises and seriously contemplating drinking the aftershave too! :? (And yes if you were just wondering the 7inch, circumcised sparrow-dick was subject to the dire consequences of the cold Scottish weather – it was reduced to a 3.5” floppy – and I had no Whisky, so no whisky dick either, I am afraid to report luv! Come later on when I ‘ve taken my Viagra and Coke then!) Not many! Well on second thoughts, METALLICA fans have eaten shit and licked toilet bowls to get concert tickets (sounds yummy :P), so I somehow I feel a bit underachieved there. Darn, I guess the morale of the story is that, that’s what you get for listening to METALLICA nowadays. S-H-I-T!
OH WELL EXTREME TIMES CALL FOR EXTREME MEASSURES
