b o b

With a number of other well-written reviews of this album already existing on Ground and Sky, there's not much left for me to write about except to give my personal opinions. So you might be better off reading the other reviews first and coming back to this one if you want one more point of view... I like this album a lot more than its predecessor. Even though it incorporates various other styles of music, it still "feels" more like a Magma album to me than Üdü Wüdü does. "Lirik Necronomicus Kant" is a real oddity - imagine thick Magma bass combined with a discoish beat and a lead melody that seems to be played on a kazoo. Very weird, but it works. "Maahnt (The Wizards Fight vs. the Devil)" gets my vote for worst ever subtitle for a prog song (makes me glad I can't understand most of the band's lyrics), but the music itself is good. One day while listening to "Dondaï", I was reflecting on how surprisingly pretty it is for a Magma song when my wife came into the room and asked how I can stand to listen to that crap - apparently Vander's screechy falsetto vocals kept her from hearing the beauty of the underlying music. All in all, not my favorite Magma album but still worth having. review by Bob Eichler — undated —

d o m

After Üdü Wüdü, Magma disbanded for a time, only to reconvene a year later under a slightly different direction than before. While drummer Christian Vander had maintained general leadership of the band since the early 70s, the new phase of Magma could almost be considered a Vander solo project. His interest in funk, R-n-B, gospel, and pop would come to the fore, and similar to many of his prog-rock and jazz fusion peers, he would mold the band's sound into something closer to "popular". The music on this album is brighter than the previous album, emphasizing rhythm, lead vocals, and a fat bass sound over murky group vocals and extended zeuhl suites. Lead vocals, in fact, are handled exclusively by Vander, with usual Magma frontman Klaus Blasquiz vastly underutilized. "The Last Seven Minutes" is burning zeuhl-funk, with some of Christian Vander's most explosive drumming on record. Although they weren't singing about interplanetary war anymore (although it sounds like they're still in Kobaian), the band never lost its intensity. This is getting closer to hard-edged fusion, a la groups such as Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever, but nothing that features Vander's idiosyncratic wail is going to sound derivative. Fast, furious, and funky. "Dondaï" is a slow jam, Magma style -- if Barry White had sung this, nobody would blink an eye. Actually, this is fairly calm by the group's standards, and for a while, they actually seem capable of presenting relatively straightforward stuff. Some nicely restrained drum work, soothing piano and backing vocals, and the omnipresent trill of Christian Vander. Fans of the earlier material tend to criticize this album for its lack of a "traditional" zeuhl sound in favor of a funk/fusion/zeuhl hybrid, and while it is markedly different than the preceding albums, it is one of the most exciting, and is certainly one of the most accessible. review by Dominique Leone — undated —

s e a n

Magma's 1978 release Attahk shows a band increasingly influenced by soul, although still retaining some of the Zeuhl sound. The harsh martial music of Wurdah Itah and Kohntarkosz is long gone, and the music often has more groove and swing to it. The energy level is high in almost all of the numbers, with more restrained offerings in "Rinde" and "Dondai". The one-two punch of "Rinde" and "Lirik Necronomicus Kant" is my favorite part of the album, as the first, a rolling piano part with beautiful female vocals segues into the second, a buzzing, driving, intense workout up there with the best Zeuhl has to offer. This album shows the band's sound going away from the Wagner/Orff grandeur of before and closer to Coltrane and other contemporary jazz artists. Piano, bass and drums still seem to be the main instruments here, but this is not an album that imitates what the band has already accomplished up to this point. This fact tends to cause some dislike from ardent Magma fans, but I feel this album has its place in the Magma canon where something like Merci might not. I therefore recommend this to those interested in Magma, with the caveat that it does not fully represent what the band was about. Thus liking or disliking this album does not necessarily mean the rest of the discography is for you. But it's an album with its own strengths and should be given a chance before being written off by supporters of the band's earlier period. review by Sean McFee — undated —

j o e

This album is practically a Christian Vander solo album, and the last released under the name "Magma" until the reunion concerts/Retrospektiw albums of 1980. Considered as a Magma entity, Attahk is a very differently-colored horse. The chromatic epics that marked the classic period of Magma are no longer, supplanted by shorter works (probably a casualty of the time period, the late 70s). Vander takes over the lead vocalist role, with former lead vocalist Klauz Blasquiz relegated to back-up. The material is wildly varied in a way that earlier Magma was not. Here we have blistering outrageous funk ("The Last Seven Minutes"; Vanderīs drumming is unbelievable on this one), gospel ("Spiritual"; love the backup vocals), disco ("Liriik Necronomicus Kanht"), symph ("Dondai" and "Rinde"; Magma at its most beautiful in the conventional sense)...Attahk is an eclectic if atypical treat, for those who want to hear the Magma sound incorporated into a vast array of musical idioms. webmaster's note: in an e-mail to me, Joe notes about the lineup: "For the recording sessions, Guy Delacroix was both Ourgon [Earth bassist] and Gorgo [Air bassist], but Jean-Luc Chevalier became Gorgo by the time touring began. Also note that (for the first time) CV is the lead vocalist and KB is a backing vocalist." review by Joe McGlinchey — undated —

b r a n d o n

An undeniably fun release which no doubt annoys Magma purists, Attahk sees the band exploring some genres of music which have nothing to do with prog whatsoever, including funk, soul and even gospel. All of this diverse material is, however, performed with that well-beloved Magma sound, with amazing vocals (which probably sound silly to those hearing them for the first time) and great instrumentation - particularly that familiarly bombastic Christian Vander drumming. The use of two basses ("air bass" and "earth bass") gives the sound a very, um, organic feel. The end result is very eclectic: zeuhl-funk? Funk-zeuhl? Gospeuhl? Symphonic zeuhl? In any case, it's certainly an adventure, and Magma fans should look into this one with an open mind. Very enjoyable, although nowhere close to the epics of Magma's earlier years. I am told the next studio album, Merci, continues these diversifying trends but to a terrible extent, effectively destroying all that was good about Magma's music. Oh well. This one appears to be a nice compromise, then. review by Brandon Wu — undated —