Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow | ||||
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Studio album by Magnum | ||||
Released | 26 March 2007 | |||
Recorded | Mad Hat Studios, Wolverhampton United Kingdom 2005 – 2006 |
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Length | 62:47 | |||
Label | SPV | |||
Producer | Tony Clarkin | |||
Magnum chronology | ||||
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Singles from Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | |
MelodicRock.com |
Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow is the 14th studio album by the English rock band Magnum. The album was released by SPV in Germany on 23 March 2007, in the rest of Europe on 26 March 2007 and in the USA on 3 April 2007. The album title refers to the Princess Alice orphanage near Birmingham, with which Tony Clarkin has close personal ties. The album is the first new studio album with Rodney Matthews' artwork since 1992.
The album entered the UK Album Charts at No. 70, the first time Magnum had charted in the UK since 1994. It also reached No. 4 on the BBC Rock Album Charts and No. 60 in Germany, the band's biggest market outside of the UK along with Scandinavia.
All tracks written by Tony Clarkin.
Like Brothers We Stand digital (2008)
The cover art was designed by Rodney Matthews.
"Tony had got this idea of Princess Alice in his head; the name came from the Princess Alice orphanage in Birmingham... although the Alice on the cover, our Princess Alice if you like, is a fictitious character. And it just seemed right to ask Rodney if he would be interested in doing a painting for the front cover instead of using computer graphics which we have used a lot in the recent past. Tony wanted the sly fox in the artwork and Princess Alice breaking the arrow over her head and this was something that had to be done by an artist... so the only man for the job was Rodney Matthews. We went down to his house in Wales and Tony sat down with him and went through his ideas for the cover and Rodney came back to us with this wonderful pencil drawing which knocked us over; it was brilliant in black and white so we knew it would look amazing in colour. Of course with Rodney he was a known quantity for us from Storyteller's Night and those other great covers and so he was the obvious choice. It reminds me a lot of Storyteller's Night and it shouts Magnum at you; I don’t think anybody else would have a cover like that really." — Bob Catley, 2007
"The little story there is that Princess Alice is doing a deal with the fox; breaking an arrow over her head is her making peace with the fox which is part of the lyrics in "Like Brothers We Stand". And this song is to do with the Native American Indians making peace with the White Man so that they ended up being shoved into reservations instead of having all of that country to themselves. "The Flood" from Sleepwalking was basically the same subject matter. And then the kids in the background stuck in the cages are all looking sorry for themselves and the Princess is trying to get the kids back as part of her deal. And she also kicked off a song called "You’ll Never Sleep" which closes the album that was also part of the very loose Princess Alice concept." — Bob Catley, 2007