Album Review: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

By Aaron Davis (for JHWeekly.com)Here Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros **The character that is Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros is an entourage, an 11-member band divulging ’70s-inspired folk that made the nation spin with the single, “Home,” in 2009. The mythos, the dreamy happy music has come back in a familiar form on Here, where production level sugar coats a batch of songs that lack depth, yet crawl on the surface like a contemporary production of The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” global television performance. Lennon and Harrison were obvious favorites of frontman Alex Ebert. What splices this release from Up From Below, is fewer addictive melodies – found only on the first two tracks “Man on Fire” and “That’s What’s Up.” The set progresses with a stoned, cruise control vibe that would really take only one-third of this ensemble to reproduce. A quasi-religious love theme threads these nine, built-to-sing-a-long tunes with a heavy reverb screen that sometimes washes away the clarity, but certainly builds a particular vibe.