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The Magnificent Tree is accomplished, just unsensational. It nails the neo-'60s trip-hop set down by Mono and Olive but then tries too hard to have a finger in other pies.
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They've already featured on a multitude of soundtracks including Stealing Beauty, Shades and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Not to mention cinema ads for champagne and episodes of La Femme Nikita and er, Baywatch. That's pretty much all bases covered, then.
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With 1998's Blue Wonder Powder Milk and now The Magnificent Tree, Hooverphonic's sound has become increasingly hip and cosmopolitan, slowly processing out everything that made it so alluring in the first place. It's still sleek and meticulously produced. But, as with the latest from Morcheeba (another band with similar trip-hoppy proclivities), the nagging sense of something menacing behind these songs has practically disappeared.
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Classic embryonic vocalic beauty from Geike Arnaert still carries the translucence of the band's signature ethereality, and shines as hard as she did on the band's previous releases. However, musical composition on songs such as "Pink Fluffy Dinosaurs" and "Frosted Flake Wood" are more intricate and sonically defined.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 15 out of 16
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Mixed: 0 out of 16
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Negative: 1 out of 16
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Dec 16, 2022
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PavelKApr 24, 2006The greatest one I ever had! The only CD I got where nothing goes wrong!
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BennyMNov 7, 2005Great songwriter, incredible talented. The singer sucks but who cares..the songs are very good.