The Black Magic Show Elefant Kemado Records Rocks like: The Cure, Keiser Chiefs, David Bowie out of

Two winters ago, Diego Garcia took a hiatus. He left New York City — a city boasting of steel high-rises, plagued by congested transit systems and struck by unforgiving wintry blasts — and traveled to South America, where he stayed at his family home in Cordoba, Argentina.

It was at his home that he was inspired to buy a classical guitar and travel to Cartagena, Columbia, and back. On his South American journey, he wrote some new material, and upon returning to New York he shared his crafted songs to fellow band members of Elefant. Soon, his acoustic ideas were transformed into the anticipated album The Black Magic Show.

The Black Magic Show is Elefant’s sophomore album and follows their critically acclaimed 2003 debut, Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid. Since their debut, the band has matured greatly from their experiences performing to world-wide audiences. Touring has strengthened the band’s sound. Diego’s voice blends seamlessly with Kevin McAdams’ beats, Mod’s melodic guitar strumming and Jeff Berrall’s sinister bass lines, to create a sophisticated sound with improved lyrical content.

The quartet spent many months in Los Angeles working in the studio with Don Gilmore. In the past, Gilmore worked with Duran Duran, Linkin Park and Good Charlotte. After contributing structurally, Gilmore helped Elefant achieve a distinctive sound in The Black Magic Show that the band could truly call their own.

Unlike their debut album, The Black Magic Show is not focused chiefly on love, its beauty or painful imperfections. Rather, it explores an array of passions inspired by real-life experiences and literary icons.

“Lolita” is drawn partly from actual events and is part homage to Vladimir Nabokov’s classic novel “Lolita” in which a man falls in love with a prepubescent girl. Several other songs deal with autobiographical elements, such as “Why” and “My Apology,” both of which explore Diego’s past experiences and the way in which he dealt with them.

The first song invites listeners to relax and enjoy the performance they are about to experience. Garcia sings, “And it already has begun/It’s no reason for you to cry/Welcome to the black magic show.” After the musical introduction, amalgamations of sounds from sinister chords reminiscent of Black Sabbath in “Lolita” to ’80s funk in “Uh Oh Hello” are offered as if each song were an audible act.

The Black Magic Show has a dark, brooding sound with a strong bass line and beats that have a sense of urgency, especially prevalent in the song “Lolita.” There is a sense of the grandiose in several of the songs, especially in the chorus of “The Clown” in which a heavily layered sound is created that fills the eardrums as the darkly playful lyrics are sung: “It’s a beautiful day for sin/It’s the best way to live/You can call me your clown/I’ll bring you straight down.”

Elefant’s sound has matured since the debut album, and several of the songs border on the brink of real originality. However, the band lacks that certain distinctive quality that would elevate them to the iconic status of acts like Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Nirvana and Radiohead, where so many bands yearn to set foot. With a little bit more magic, The Black Magic Show would have been an unforgettable experience.