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Magnificent Fiend follows up the band’s self-titled 2006 debut in powerful style, fashioning a blend of hard blues, herb-smoke-encrusted rock, country-tinged folk and swinging, blue-eyed soul.
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It's a tighter, less primitive album than its predecessor, but as such, it has a lot more to offer as well.
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It's easy to hear why Rubin swooped in to release this.
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The songs are written handsomely, and with effort: solemn introductions, multiple gear-shifting bridges, cruising solo passages.
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This album is a feast for the uninitiated.
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UncutMagnificent Fiend is both indebted to the past and utterly timeless, wild but controlled, chin-stroking clever and head-shaking dumb, referential without being reverential. [May 2008, p.88]
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Now and then, alas, it is perhaps more Dave Matthews Band than Steve Miller Band, but when it all rings true, as on the glorious crescendo and singalong that closes Lord Have Mercy, it's an impeccably pitched, retro-rock joy.
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MojoTheir sun-baked, lyrically feverish chooglin' is more textured and melodic on these addictive new jams, ripe with Hammond-flavoured funkadelia and visionary gospel-prog. [May 2008, p.111]
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Everyone who likes Howlin Rain’s sound will come away from Magnificent Fiend wanting more. At just eight tracks, it’s a rare full length that doesn’t seem full enough.
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cokemachineglowThese seven songs (eight if you count the intro) sound great in the car, are loaded with Hammond organ and Fender Rhodes, and Miller’s throaty bellows are higher in the mix than on the first Howlin’ Rain album
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Under The RadarThis is good, old-time rock and roll, beer in hand and completely earnest. [Winter 2008, p.82]
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So there is a lot to love within this album. Its knowing winks to rock’s early ‘70s excesses and sage-like nods to the soulful marriage of rock and rhythm and blues exemplified by Sly and Curtis mean that we’re comforted rather than challenged.
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Q MagazineMagnificent Fiend recycles a lot of hairy late-'60s/early '70s rock moves. [June 2008, p.149]
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It may be churlish to criticise Miller for proving and expanding his range, but anyone expecting another superior, overdriven, psych cacophony will be disappointed.
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When [Ethan Miller] bellows, "Lord, have mercy on my soul," the result is hokey, irresistible fun.
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I’d rather be listening to Magnificent Fiend’s antecedents.
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It's not until Magnificent Fiend's closing trio of seven-minute behemoths that Howlin Rain find traction, though it's the band's willingness to tweak its grand appropriations, rather than the tracks' epic lengths, that helps the songs stick.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 6
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Mixed: 0 out of 6
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Negative: 1 out of 6
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DavidB.Apr 6, 2008A good-sounding album, but it's nothing new or original.
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SaviS.Mar 19, 2008Please, please listen the guitar solo at the end of Lord Have Mercy, it's beautiful!