Will They Turn You On or Will They Turn On You

I seem to remember some folks – critics, in particular – being sniffly about Magic Hour when they existed, probably because they didn’t sound like another version of one of the constituent members’ past groups (Galaxie 500 or Crystalized Movements). And while I wasn’t one of those people, it still seems unfair that such a great quartet, capable of both skin-flaying overloaded guitar mantras and gentle, pellucid folk-esque rock hymns, copped such a rough time. On this, their second album, the short pop-not-pop songs feel particularly fragile – they remind, a little, of The Garbage & The Flowers in their disconnected, drifty post-VU spirit – but that’s all engulfed by the side-long “Passing Words”, Magic Hour’s finest moment, where a regal melody dissolves into an unrelenting, luscious slurry of jumbled, pirouetting fuzz guitar and the eternal spiral of an unyieldingly insistent rhythm section. Perfect, in fact.