Elefant's Black Magic Show may either be blessed or cursed. It will be blessed if enough people realize that their 2003 Release Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid came along a year before the flood of bands who fell into the general Gang-of-Four/Cure/Joy Division retro-ranks. And thus instead of being percieved as late-coming copycats chasing the burgeoning bandwagon toting the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, The Killers, et. al. and this year's She Wants Revenge - to name the major torch-bearers - they'll be accepted as rightful heirs to the trend that they helped to spark. Regardless how close the trend is to it's expiration date.

My guess is that Elephant will fall into a cruelly ironic black hole, in that their debut will have been a year ahead of it's time, and the follow-up will come along just in time to see the boat shrink on the horizon. That would certainly be a shame because I really like these guys - Diego Garcia was born to front a rock and roll band. With his chamelon vocal ability and his tall, dark and mysteriously handsome presence. Our own Adam Mast and Kyle England had the chance to hang out with him at Coachella and found him to be most gracious and approachable. He posed for a classic photo with the fellas which graces one of the articles for one of that years reports.

Musically, the band certainly hasn't deviated far from the formula that made Sunlight one of my favorite records of 2003. Which is good in that I wouldn't have wanted them to trifle with the recipe too much, but considering all the bands who have mined similar veins over the past few years, it might have behooved them to step away from their trademark sound further than they did. This isn't to suggest that they settled for a carbon copy of Sunlight and they 'have' taken steps forward (particularly in the lyrical department) still you get the overall impression that they played it safe hoping to cash-in on the tail end of a retro-trend they were one of the first bands to spur into existence.