Album of the Week: So Many Wizards – Warm Nothing
Let’s get one thing clear from the outset. We’re a little bit in love with So Many Wizards.
First spotted as the filling in an avant garde sandwich (LeThug and Adam Stafford being the bread), their short summery melodies stood out on a strong bill and jarred with the bristling noise of the other two acts.
Naturally we bounded up to the band afterwards and bonded with them over a beer in the next bar. We wouldn’t have bothered if we felt lukewarm about their music.
Now, here’s a proper introduction to the band for a British audience.
Some of the songs on Warm Nothing are genuinely new, but three featured on their tour sampler as purchased in Henry’s that night mentioned above, and we suspect others have been kicking round for a while.
No matter. This would perhaps have been a cause for complaint if, say, Warm Nothing didn’t hold together as an album but that’s not the case and without such prior knowledge you’d never guess it.
Musically this sits somewhere between Grizzly Bear and the Beach Boys – all the sweeping and grandeur of the former, but compressed into two minutes, making them as chirpy and radio friendly as the latter.
Lose Your Mind, at an epic 3.24 is the longest thing here meaning that songs are sometimes gone before they’ve even started, annoying when you’ve been enjoying the melodic bounce of Inner City, but it at least means that boredom is not an option.
There a some genuine treats along the way with the delicate Into a Daze kicking off a particularly strong mid-section, with Nima Kazerouni’s sweet vocals scattered around like glitter. In The Sun is comparatively frantic with a hip shaking groove which, judging by the scale of venues in LA they’ve been playing, seems to have been embraced by the Californian scenesters.
On this strong early showing, we reckon the UK ought to get in on the act sharpish.
