THE MAGIC NUMBERS – Hymn For Her / Oh Sister Posted by AlMachine on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 Not since the heady days of the Mamas And The Papas or dare I say it, their offspring Wilson Phillips has such an exuberant display of nepotism been so prevalent as the set up behind New York quartet The Magic Numbers. Currently being heralded as the benevolent grandchildren of Wayne Coyne or more to the point, the stripped down Polyphonic Spree it’s cool to like, The Magic Numbers – Romeo Stodart and his sister Michele, and Sean Gannon and his female sibling Angela – look poised to grasp the success that eluded those other new folk/alt country pioneers The Moldy Peaches. And with some aplomb too. Whilst neither ‘Hymn For Her’ or ‘Oh Sister’ resonates with the same youthful innocence as the aforementioned Peaches’ classics ‘Anyone Else But You’ or ‘Who’s Got The Crack?’, both songs offer an undoubted panache for crafting something extra special out of an old exercise book of scribblings, an acoustic guitar and melodica. ‘Hymn For Her’ draws a line under Cat Stevens’ ‘Father And Son’ and moves it swiftly into the 21st Century on a wave sub-‘Smile’ grooves and pensive lyricisms, courtesy of the elder Stodart, who takes the lead vocal here. Flip the seven-inch over and Ms Gannon leads the way on ‘Oh Sister’, a song which the likes of Devendra Banhart and dare I say it, Ed Harcourt, would be falling backwards over each other to write. File under potential, as in “the potential to be absolutely gigantean this time next year”. Dom Gourlay