Let’s get to brass tacks here, it’s been five years since Norwegian maestros Gazpacho have put out a new album after their 11th studio album Fireworker released during the pandemic. It has been a long, long time since we’ve heard from them. When you think of the creative work this band have put out, they have never backed down without a fight.
From gems such as Demon, Tick Tock, March of Ghosts, Soyuz, Missa Atropos, and Molok, you never know what to expect from them. Well, it is now 2025, almost time for Halloween and the band are back in full glory by unleashing their 12th studio album Magic 8-Ball.
Released on the Kscope label, Magic 8-Ball is a story-structured album, dealing with the idea of fate, how it moves, and the choices that we made, can come at a heavy price in a parallel universe. Each of the pieces that is on their latest album, details the tragedy, the downfall, and the moments where it comes out of the blue unexpectedly and not knowing the consequences that come with it.
It’s based on the Ship of Theseus, which is known as Theseus’ paradox, a philosophical thought experiment about identity, whose ship planks and gradually replace in overtime. It’s almost like this alternate soundtrack to the video game to the BioShock franchise that Gazpacho have steam towards.
Listening to the opening track ‘Starling’, it was almost as if Radiohead were re-visiting their magnum opus OK Computer 28 years later, but it’s the romantic waltz, mournful pianos, and Jan’s ghost-like vocals sending shivers down your spine. You never know what will happen as the grey clouds part, seeing a beautiful sun beaming across the heavens.
And the question, it’s up for the listener to decide. ‘We Are Strangers’ details a dooming, post-rock, New Wave approach in this 1980s texture that speaks of Tangerine Dream’s Cyclone and Vangelis’ score to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. But with an electronic beat, unveiling a futuristic structure that’s on the brink of collapse with a rising arrangement.
‘Sky King’ depicts the Demon-era, returning to where ‘The Wizard of Altai Mountains’ and the two-parter ‘I’ve Been Walking’ have left off with this mellotron-like atmosphere as we witness the master seeing his world collapsing in front of his eyes and the Mob, ready to attack the castle and take him down, one way or another. He was once true and honor to the people they admired.
Now with the corruption in hands, the hefty price has taken him down in a matter of seconds with its epic-like roar that Gazpacho unleashes. From the moment the rain pours throughout the ‘Gingerbread Men’ to appear, you feel the loneliness in the depths of Gotham City. The city is on the brink of collapse after each of the chaos, the crimes, the crooks who escaped from Arkham Asylum and returned back, it seems as if the clock is ticking, waiting for the explosion to hit at any second.
The sounds of a distorted piano come out of nowhere behind ‘Ceres’ with its waltz-like arrangement. You could tell that Gazpacho were doing their source material, paying nod to David Bowie’s second side of the Low album, and bits of Mike Oldfield thrown into the mix with its darker approach before heading back into the deep, dark mystical forest with its golden-era of Muse between Absolution and The Resistance with their vocal lines singing in this cabaret approach on the title-track.
Listening to the sixth track, I get a sense that Gazpacho wrote this as the Joker’s theme during the events of Alan Moore’s controversial graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke where the climax between the clown and the Dark Knight himself, gets more intense at the depicted turned abandoned structure of Amusement Mile.
The lullaby flows well into the stratosphere behind the closing track ‘Unrisen’ where the band bring in a string orchestra on the keyboards, knowing that all good things must come to an end where it leaves us hanging for life on this massive cliff and never knowing that there’s more to this story that the band have left for us. Will there be more? We may never know.
