Music is a dangerously seductive beast. And human-beings are surprisingly perseverant. Three years after seemingly having abandoned the music scene and just over two years since moving to that seething west-coast metropolis, Los Angeles, Matt Hales and Aqualung return with "Magnetic North", their sixth (is it really that many?) studio album. Unfortunately perhaps best known for that car advert song ("Strange & Beautiful (I'll Put A Spell On You)"), Hales made a name for gentle piano-led pop music, not a million miles away from Parachutes-era Coldplay. Having stepped away from the game though, it soon became clear that all thoughts of "becoming a teacher" were premature. By 2009, it had been announced that Hales was working with Leona Lewis on "Echo", which was released that same year. "Magnetic North" completes the journey back.
Blasting out of the blocks is "New Friend", perhaps indicative of the impact a few more hours of sun a year can have on a body. Upbeat and perky with a key change less than a minute in, it's a spankingly gleaming pop piece with a grandiose crescendo that would have felt unthinkable a couple of years ago. Brassy female harmonies join Matt for the party and the whole thing is rounded off with a small child, a wee bit tritely it must be said, pronouncing proudly "I love to sing". Ok, so it's magnificently over the top, certainly compared to what we've come to expect from Aqualung, but it feels like so much of a release for Hales that you feel obliged to cut him a little slack.
Indeed, the work done with Lewis appears to have had a rejuvenating effect on Hales. There's a bright and breezy pop sensibility to the early tracks that was present in previous encounters but was perhaps less brazen in appearance. The murmured female harmonies on the "Sundowning" refrain are actually quite lovely but bear more than a hint of that famous X-Factor pizzazz. "Reel Me In" is all spiralling pianos, crashing drums and flurrying, West End musical-style harmonies, as big a show as he's ever pulled off. Soulful females croon lightly in the background of "Hummingbird" before a sultry siren takes over the verse with a glittery solo, sighing wistfully about "taking over". The song even starts off with - mercy me - a fade-in, of all things.
But for those who got in on the ground floor, who've been with the Aqualung bandwagon through thick and thin, don't be mistaken in thinking that the LA lifestyle has turned Hales into a vacuous, throwaway pop star. "Sundowning" is as reflective and gently heartfelt as anything he's ever put together. The Californian sun may be going down on his sun-kissed skin, but the self-doubt is still burning for all to see: "I found the missing/puzzle piece but/I don't know, I don't know where to begin". "Thin Air", tragically beautiful in its desolation, builds around a decidedly Ludovico Einaudi mood as the piano surges, flourishes and recedes in equal measure. Hales' lyrics appear to be of suicide, but the idea of his love living on beyond our mortal plane is heart-warming, even after the heart-rending denouement of "Stepping out into the thin air/I believe I can".
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"California", however, is a sweet entreating vignette of acoustic guitar and far away piano, which feels deliciously heart-felt as Hales entreats his love to fly away with him to California. This, of course, wouldn't be an Aqualung song without the inner pessimist chiming in at the end, although such is the insouciant tone that even the warning of "Before we come undone" feels little more than a half-hearted concern.
Indeed, it rather quickly becomes apparent that the move to sunnier climes has done Aqualung the world of good. The world seen through the prism of "36 Hours" feels a brighter place, in which a happy-go-lucky Hales re-embraces life and starts anew. So far, so autobiographical, but the treatment of what could have been rather dull and unoriginal is kept afloat by an energetic chiming piano line and a weight-from-the-shoulders sounding chorus line; all this despite the growing sense that Hales is talking about a relationship that's finally over, although whether it's a tangible person or simply symbolic is anyone's guess. And in "Fingertip", when Hales announces to his female prey "[I'm] gonna make you fall in love with me", this new found confidence and self-assuredness could almost be a message to those in the music world that had somehow let Aqualung's music pass them by.
Overall, it would appear that Hales' "grand escape" to the other side of the world has worked in his favour. Returning refreshed, revitalised but still resolute in his occasionally bleak outlook on life, Hales has brought back with him an Aqualung album of hope and gaiety without forgetting a reassuringly generous helping of that Aqualung brand of fragility and sadness. "Magnetic North" is an eloquent, emotional, album of piano-led pop, full of intelligence, thought and - yes, we're still talking about an Aqualung album - fun. Who'd have thought it, eh? I for one am thankful that this teaching lark never really worked out, for what is education's loss is most definitely the music scene's gain.
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