House Music, the first solo album by former Broken Family Band member Steven James Adams, was recorded in his front room with a bunch of mates. In contrast, Old Magick was conjured with producer Dan Michaelson in a London studio, but if anything its arrangements are more sparse and pared back than those of its predecessor. There’s economy, too, in the album’s brevity, and no fat on any of its 10 lean tracks – or perhaps that should be nine tracks, since More Togetherness is a gorgeously echoey reprise of the opening song’s refrain. “What happened to us?” asks a deadpan Adams on Kings of the Back of the Bus, with a hint of Robert Forster or Syd Barrett. It’s a barbed message to a friend settling into comfortable middle age: “Now it’s just massage music in your house.” There’s more world-weariness on other songs such as Sea of Words (“You didn’t make time for love”) and Sonny (“We’ve got a long way to go”), but it’s worn lightly, thanks to Old Magick’s acoustic warmth.
