Rays & Hail 1978-2011 (2024 Reissue)

Enduringly credible, Magazine have always been the connoisseur’s choice and frequently name checked by some of the most gifted musicians of recent years including Radiohead, Morrissey, Jarvis Cocker, U2, Johnny Marr and MGMT. NME.com went so far as to included Magazine in a poll as one of the most influential bands of all time. Magazine’s front man, Howard Devoto co-formed Buzzcocks with Pete Shelley after the pair had seen The Sex Pistols in early 1976 and promoted the now legendary Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall gigs. Devoto left in 1977, after the seminal ‘Spiral Scratch’ EP had been released, and created Magazine. Their first record was the post-punk anthem ‘Shot By Both Sides’. Leading the vanguard of post-punk, Magazine’s sound focused on the double barrels of Dave Formula’s swirling keyboards and John McGeoch’s ahead-of-its-time innovative guitar work, underpinned by Barry Adamson’s pulsing yet deviously irregular bass-lines. Atop of which came Howard Devoto’s lyrics. Aloof, articulate, tersely ironic and about as pliable as a garden rake. Too literary for the mass pop environment. Too poppy for the literary landscapes beyond it. Doomed to exist in that tiny, undersubscribed hinterland where artful wordplay meets the crunching riff. ’Real Life’, ‘Secondhand Daylight’, ‘The Correct Use of Soap’, and ‘Magic, Murder and The Weather’. Four ground breaking albums and then the band parted company, leaving behind an influential body of work to critical acclaim. A fifth studio album, ’No Thyself’, was released in 2011 following a 2009 reformation. The plaudits continued.

“Devoto, let’s just say, for the hell of it because the story has to start somewhere, with a bang, or a legendary punk gig, was the man who changed Manchester because he had an idea about what needed to happen at just the right time in just the right place. He arranged for the Sex Pistols to play in Manchester before the rest of the country had caught up with the idea that there was any such thing as a Sex Pistol. In the audience for the shows were Mark E Smith, Ian Curtis, Morrissey and Devoto himself, four of the greatest rock singers of all time, directly challenged to take things on.”  – Paul Morley / The Observer / 2006

“Magazine are the most criminally underrated band in the past 25 years of British pop in my view. Howard Devoto was a total pop genius, but he was a slightly misshaped pop star and I think nobody really got him. Simple Minds should not have been big, but Magazine should have - someone made a clerical mistake somewhere.” – Jeremy Vine / The Daily Telegraph / 2007

“Saying that Devoto has a cult following is like saying that King Kong was a big hairy gorilla: it’s superfically accurate but doesn’t really convey the full scale picture. On that ‘So It Goes’ he came on with the most powerful presence I’d seen since the first time I clapped eyes on Johnny Rotten... the kind of guy who’s going to get a big hoopla but who deserves it.” – Charles Shaar Murray / NME / 1978

“mmm... not bad, for New Wave.” – Bob Harris / The Old Grey Whistle Test / 1978

Tracklist

1. Shot By Both Sides
2. Definitive Gaze
3. Motorcade
4. The Light Pours Out Of Me
5. Parade (live version from 'Play')
6. Feed The Enemy
7. Rhythm Of Cruelty
8. Back To Nature
9. Permafrost
10. Because You're Frightened
11. You never knew me
12. A song from under the floorboards
13. I want to burn again
14. Sweetheart contract
15. This poison
16. Naked eye
17. Physics
18. Holy dotage
19. Final analysis waltz