Sounds 31 Mar 79 - by Garry Bushell

"It's always raining over the border/There's been a plane crash over there/In the wheat fields they're picking up I he pieces/We could go and look and stare"

You get the picture? Yes we see.

It would seem that the current yardstick of intellectualism is inability to communicate a single idea or emotion which is why Devoto - who consistently fails to communicate anything save his own undoubted superiority over the rest of the human race - is held so highly by that section of the music press that equates pretension with Art - If the border exists it is between Devoto and Real life - and the music press's self-conscious Intellectuals are his border guards.

But you could argue with some justification that other groups have frequently got away with ridiculous lyrical excesses on the basis of the sheer overpowering neato neuto quality of their music. unfortunately all we're offered here is unembarrassingly redundant exercise in musical regression dressed as new wave giant

Come on - Let's walk down Memory Lane the Magazine way. Let's regurgitate fifth-rate 'Low' period pieces. let's plonk plonk plonk with ponderous sub-Pink Floydery - Let's do the Wallpaper Waltz This is not pushing back the barriers' - it's frighteningly bland Conservatism - and what is really annoying is knowing it will be hailed in certain quarters as something Brave and New. Don't be fooled.

Even when John McGeoch comes up with the odd attractive opening guitar figure any aroused interest is soon drowned in a stodgey mess of 'progressive' song structures and Devoto's awful amateur dramatic vocals - he Sounds Like he's gargling with Grundrisse stuck in the back of his throat. It's not that I'm resurrecting the familiar and simplistic 'insignificant bald twerp a approach to the insignificant bald twerp but really - can someone explain to me the inner meaning of Quakers croaking "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly." half way Through 'Cut-Out Shapes' Maybe I'm thick but all anyone can do is trust their ears - m'dears - and I know this doesn't make me want to dance - or hum the tunes in the bath - or think overmuch - except along the lines that we're all being conned. 'Silly Thing' is one hundred times more exciting - 'Unconventional People' is one hundred times more relaxing - 'Questions & Answers' is one hundred times more articulate - 'Strange Town' is one hundred times more real.

And at least 'Real Life' had a couple of slight redeeming features in 'Shot By Both Sides' (built on a customised Shelley riff) and to a lesser extent 'The Light Pours Out Of Me' (relatively entertaining postgraduate Gary Glitter) but 'Secondhand Daylight' has nothing 'cept good musicianship (and when has that ever guaranteed good music?) and an apt title.

Yeah - this is secondhand - and second rate secondhand at that. The very least they could have done in apeing electronic Bowie was remember the man's ability to create memorable tunes and write lyrics that strike chords with a great many people.

The most honest line Devoto comes up with is "Here is the lie of the land again" - He's right. The old days re-assert

themselves safely and blandly in a late 70's retreat to the old progressive Lie. The only question left outstanding is how long will it be before Magazine need a juggernaut for their synthesisers?

Personally I don't know - I don't care - and I've gotta go - mate.

NME 31 Mar 1979 by Nick Kent

'Spiral Scratch' was no startling revelation to me and 'Shot By Both Sides' left me impressed with the conclusion of its conceit without moving me to any fervent degree. Similarly - 'Real Life' - the first Magazine album - had a half-baked quality to it -

- yes - there was potential and yes. there was master of ceremonies Devoto intoning intriguing obscurities - but there was also an overwhelming sense of the premature about the project. Magazine as a band were obviously still coming to terms with the task of mustering their full resources; the record was also badly produced - more often than not burying Devoto's voice when clarity was all important.

'Second-Hand Daylight' rectifies the latter vocal problem with a degree of success that is almost disarming. More essentially - the combination of a nine month lapse between 'Real Life' and the new album - also the fact that prodcution (sic) duties have switched from John Leckie to one Colin Thurston - all this has given Devoto and Magazine a context in which they can provide the listener with a Grade A representation of their talents.

Where previously there was half-realised potential. there is now an austere sense of authority to the music. This becomes clear from the first bars of 'Feed The Enemy'. These are very 'Low'-period Bowiesque - right down to the stray saxophone bleats and lulling synthesiser chords - both of which are sublimated into the dank neo-Gothic sound to which Magazine seem so partial (the same ingredients precede the first moments of the second side as well).

And then Devoto begins the song itself - lyrically an account of a plane crash (I think) with imagery that runs the gauntlet from the vivid to the obscure - the arrangement is precise - focused and ingenious. A fitting prelude - this - because it presents the all-important balance between band and front-man the whole album goes on to establish. Magazine have well and truly become a group.

'Rhythm Of Cruelty' is a slightly different take from the single: a wiry - jittery piece with Devoto at once presenting some of his better lyrics but vocally nodding a little too archly in the direction of Sparks' cuteness and even hitting at a Lydon sneer.

'Cut-Out-Shapes' continues the Sparks' vocalese. but this is Devoto's prime precinct - He wrote the music - an ominous motorik which the band enhance to a degree that gives the composition - at a guess - -a paean to 'numbness' - just the right cutting edge. Both 'Talk To The Body' and 'I Wanted Your Body' provide diversity to good effect. The first is subversively 'poppy' - the as a really gripping melody courtesy of keyboardman David Formula and bassist Barry Adamson.

Meanwhile 'I Wanted Your Heart' joins side two's 'Back To Nature' and 'Permafrost' as one of the album's three comparative masterpieces. 'Back To Nature' is the finest song and performance Devoto and Magazine have ever executed. Devoto finally finds his voice - a terse - uncompromising instrument - and lets fly with floods of imagery that owe nothing to anyone - while Magazine match him punch for punch.

'Believe That I Understand' is Magazine-rock with a sterling chord change and Devoto again using his 'real' voice. It's a forceful performance but - sandwiched between 'Nature' and the final 'Permafrost' - it tends to lose its momentum.

"As the day stops dead/At the place where we've stopped/I will drug you and f*** you/On the permafrost".

'Permafrost' owes passing nods to both Iggy Pop (lyrically and vocally) and John Barry (an old and burgeoning influence) - but transcends its debts by establishing once and for all the animal known as Magazine. Its an appropriately chilling and seductive end to a strong album.

So. Farwell (sic) then - 'Second-Hand Daylight'. You've convinced me that Howard - Devoto and Magazine are a force to be reckoned with. No mean feat - seeing as I dislike lyricists who tend to play coy and wallow in obscurity and as I also detect a plethora of influences peaking out of every note at times. But you've arrived and have harnessed your considerable potential to the dictates of 'professionalism' whilst still taking chances.

After all - as Devoto himself says - and I'll back him up to the hilt"I've got to admire your ingenuity".

Melody Maker 31 Mar 79 by James Truman

The freshness and vitality of "Real Life" was derived as much from its restraint - and John Leckie's brittle - understated production as from the strength of the songs themselves. This album leaves no such gaps and - paradoxically - in stating more says a great deal less.

Colin Thurston - the producer here - weighs in with a full wide screen sound which - while reflecting some of the band's more ponderous arrangements - often seems overbearing and needlessly extravagant - effectively burying the songs In layer upon layer of icily dramatic textures.

At the same time"Secondhand Daylight" presupposes its own importance with such conviction - and contains such excellent individual performances from the band - that the tact that they only rarely add up to anything of weight often fades into insignificance

Both sides open with instrumentals - the first being the shorter and less interesting of the two. Dave Formula's synthesizer introduces the theme - a piano picks 'it up - and it segues into a bass riff which becomes "Feed The Enemy" - the first song

Lyrically and atmospherically a throwback to "Motorcade" from the first album - disarranged snippets of information about a plane crash emerge from an austere backdrop of guitar and keyboards - building up to a powerful climax with the addition of saxophone and disembodied - ethereal voices. -

"Rhythm Of Cruelty" makes as much sense on the album as it did as a single - which is to say very little. An embarrassingly trite lyric ("You are - too good looking for your own damn good/And you don't know what it could mean" etc.) joined to half a guitar riff and no melody does not make a great song.

The next track"Cutout Shapes" - is the strongest and most full realised on the album. An angular - distorted guitar phrase opens - split through with a recurring organ swell and syncopated percussion - before the main theme is overlaid. The song falls into a refrain - swings - back to its original attack - and then subsides oven a repeated piano phrase echoed in Devoto's unusually controlled vocal.

"Task To The Body" and "I Wanted Your Heart"- both pursue a similar pattern to the single - and to similar effect. Lead-lines ascend and descend oven clumsy chord sequences - looking for a tune that newer appears and ending up lost in a wall of undifferentiated noise.

Side two opens with "The Thin Air" - a majestic - well structured - instrumental - building up over a reedy keyboard sound and saxophone - played 'by guitarist John McGeoch - and soaring through a succession of major/minor chord shifts.

"Back To Nature" and "Believe That I Understand" succeed less - again through imposing too-elaborate arrangements on a shaky song-structure. The -former also contains the album's most inane lyric (and there's no shortage of competition).

"Permafrost" - the album's conclusion and possible epilogue - follows. Sensuous and sinister - it communicates an eerie atmosphere of decay and unreality - the music kept as a deliberately spare backdrop to Devoto's emotion less intonation.

It is - in fact - one of the few places on the album where -Devoto uses his limited voice to any great effect. Elsewhere it merely becomes irritating - running the whole gamut of borrowed styles from die hard-edged growl to affected camp. He may have stumbled on the missing link between Peter Hammill and Amanda Lear - but a course of singing lessons would still seem to be the best solution.

Likewise - his lyrics run amok. When not hiding behind obscurity - they mainly seem to focus on reconciling his unlovable pub' image with his personal obsession (namely himself) and his distrust of others - in the process becoming frantically indulgent and solipsistic.

"Secondhand Daylight" will be played incessantly In university halls - public-school studies - and the bedrooms of tortured adolescents (male - of course). Curiously asexual and soulless - it invites analysis rather than reaction: an unsociable record.

Its strongest moments are as powerful as "Real 'Life" was as a whole - while at other times the gap between its artistic pretensions and their realisation is alarming. Any debts to the Buzzcocks have now been laid to rest - while ironically - Magazine desperately need a little of their humour and warmth if they aren't to become yet another group of self-conscious art-rock/future-shock poseurs.

1. [Feed The Enemy]
2. [Rhythm Of Cruelty]
3. [Cut-Out Shapes]
4. [Talk To The Body]
5. [I Wanted Your Heart]
6. [Thin Air , The]
7. [Back To Nature]
8. [Believe That I Understand]
9. [Permafrost]

MAGAZINE : Second-Hand Daylight (Virgin)

ShotByBothSides.com/mag_seco.htm