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Described as part hippie love-fest and musical traveling circus, one look at the cover photo of Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros’ Up From Below and you’ll rightfully agree with the description. If that correlation doesn’t ring true, go to the band’s homepage and check out the image of the ten or so band members holding hands in a tribal type dance circle and you’ll come to fathom that there is more than just music stirring here. The band has been selling out many of their recent smaller shows, immediately making them a live spectacle that needs to be seen. But can they capture that raw emotion on record?
Knowing what you already know about the outfit, when they sing about the “magical mystery kind” on the opener “40 Day Dream,” it’s almost too cliche, but there is an Arcade Fire type of edgy collective rock (“Janglin”) that makes the band more rock than Polyphonic Spree creepy – although the closer “Om Nashi Me” is rather odd. Up From Below’s strongest cut –“Home” is a purified psychedelic country stomper that can fit on to any taste-maker’s play-list.
Front-man Alex Ebert (a.k.a. Edward Sharpe) has a gravelly tone that can fit in with virtually any hard rock outfit, but you can feel the emotions of all his sidekicks, most noticeably “Jade,” that gives the band its roundabout joyous energy. Had they been dancing around a generation earlier, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros might have been the forefathers of a movement, Up From Below is a strong enough statement to make a name for themselves in the modern age.
