Magnet
Fall At Your Feet

It’s quite surprising that Magnet, for all their previous toiling in the dry and unforgiving field that we lovingly refer to as ‘indie’, aren’t yet straddling the charts, the globe and a host of colour supplement end-of-year polls. This isn’t just because they (or rather he, Even Johansen) have been cropping up in the most lucrative of places – ooh look, there he is on the OC, and Six Feet Under, and the bit where Brad and Angelina do something reasonable raunchy in Mr and Mrs Smith – but also because his new single, ‘Fall At Your Feet’, complies with the formulas created by the most popular and resonating of puppy-dog artists in pop today.

Melodic enough to be turned into a ringtone? Check. Vague sentiment of undying love general enough to be applied to universal emotional attachment? Check. Creator instrumentally gifted enough to be considered a Proper Musical Artist? Yep. A song safe and warm and dangerously close to being downright mediocre? But of course. Granted, Magnet have a modicum of poetic flair that places them just above the Blunts and Grays of this world ( “Without you I’m a torch with no flame”, how sweet etc.) and a penchant for atmosphere that would make this a more reasoned choice over the last Coldplay single, but on the whole there’s much more scope here for excitement, colour and adventure. It’s also quite telling that the B-side, ‘This Bird Can Never Fly’, plods along in almost exactly the same doe-eyed manner, only without a memorable chorus. All in all, not as attractive (sorry) a proposition as it could be.