Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Rarely are we presented with a moment in time in which we grieve as an artist leaves us just as their art is released into the world; it feels seismic, a moment the fan remembers for all time.

To focus on Magnum’s Here Comes The Rain without acknowledgement or understanding of the sense of loss to rock music and the band as the fiercely upsetting news of the passing of the phenomenal Tony Clarkin on the eve of what will be considered in time as perhaps a final studio hurrah, one that when delved into deeply finds the band, as always fronted the extraordinary voice of Bob Catley, arguably placing Time at the very forefront of their release.

One can never dismiss Magnum’s, across every incarnation and line-up, quality and persuasion of the lyric, and whether from their debut, through to the classic period, and in what became the silver age when fantastic musicians such Al Barrow, Thunder’s Harry James, and the late Jimmy Copley added their immense sound to the future of the band, that lyric, always from the heart of Tony Clarkin, rang true, proud, and with the panache required by Mr. Catley to bring the tales of love and fantasy, war, and memory to the fore.

Here Comes The Rain is no different, and whilst the listener and the fan may view it in a different way as previous recordings, there is no doubt of the power it holds as the lyrics, the music and the sway of the images swirl in the imagination with a sense of complete authority and absolution.

Across tracks such as Some Kind Of Treachery, Blue Tango, The Seventh Darkness, and perhaps one of the most telling songs of their career, the haunting, but sincere, I Wanna Live, Magnum release the beauty of their long lasting and compelling past directly into the future, and whilst the fan will be saddened by the loss of their respected guitar hero, what we must remember is that we had them in the first place.

Magnum may never have been placed in the realm of kings of the genre, but they were always the ones who gave it all, who pushed back against the misdeeds of time with an abundance of ability and expertise.

Here Comes The Rain, and it is downpour of emotion that must be felt by walking through the torrent, knowing full well it will, one day, smile with sunshine again.

Ian D. Hall