Magic Bullets – Young Man’s Fancy

Young Man’s Fancy, a deposed album from lost summer janglers Magic Bullets, is only from about a decade ago but the influence stretches back to the heart of new wave and jangle-pop. It feels like a collection wrenched out of time, heir apparent to records from Echo to Orange Juice to The Chesterfields and, naturally, The Smiths. The band is nothing if not studied in it’s appropriation of their predecessors’ complete trappings. The members would dilute their devotion to this level of absolute homage with stints in Terry Malts, Real Estate, The Mantles, Girls, Dominant Legs and Wild Nothing, but here, lodged between their two albums, they are rabid in their affection and affectation of the ’80s own heartbeats.

While the stylistic devotion is definitely something that dogged the band, they wore their love on their sleeve, wholeheartedly starry eyed but striving. The songs crib largely from material that would end up on their sophomore release, but in earlier forms here, it’s’ still pristine but somehow also unpolished in it’s delivery. The band would splinter years later with members going on to larger acclaim, but this is a picture of their youth incarnate. Corey Cunningham’s (Terry Malts, Business of Dreams) Parked in Hell has a tape version of the collection available now for those that have missed out. Close your eyes and any of these could slot right into a mix of your own favorite gems from the ’80s underground, and as a whole, its pretty solid as scrappers looking to capture a time they missed.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.