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At its best - and 1976's Udü Wüdü is about as good as it gets - Magma's sound is characterised by Christian Vander's avalanche drumstyle and Janik Top's steamroller basslines pulling along a train of fast jazz-rock riffing laced with incomprehensible vocals that sound variously like yodelling, mantra chanting and Wagnerian operatics. The result, like their new sponsor Steve Davis, is interesting, if not always enjoyable as such. The lyrics are in Kobaïan, Vander's Teutonic neo-language, which makes them difficult to criticise (or even understand), and it's perhaps best to view them simply as instrumental element's invented to bolster Magma's grandiose style.
Their orchestral density of sound, like their batty mythologising, is undeniably influenced by Sun Ra, though they've replaced Ra's renegade experimentalist spirit with a distinctly European order and rigidity which borders on the fascistic. There are occasional lapses from this übermenschen sound - Troller Tanz has some of the quirkiness of East European cartoon music - but the general effect is one of sheer overwhelming massivity, even when they're doing whatever is the Magmaic equivalent of getting down, as in Janik Top's Soleil D'Ork (a ritual dance done by the people of the planet Ork in tribute to the Sun). It's mean, its funky, and it's just the thing to choreograph your next rally with.