Dio - Magica

Anyone pick up the new Magica rerelease? I'm curious about the sound quality. Bonus tracks look great.

Just got it this week from Niji The Dio store directly. I have been enjoying it a lot the bonus disc material is really cool! Hearing Ronnie tell the story of Magica is very cool. The bonus live tracks say 'Bootleg' but sound really good too.

Also read this cool story this week on Bravewords, hopefully something else comes out of this too...

http://www.bravewords.com/news/206285

PS: Scott yours is on its way!

He told the story on the original Magica album.

^^ I was gonna say, Ronnie's spoken-word "Story of Magica" is on my original pressing from 2000. So what's "bonus" about this thing aside from some (useless) live tracks?

Remastered (by Wyn Davis), but also two additional tracks including an instrumental that was originally on the Japanese release.

There is actually 2 cool bonus tracks one is the unreleased track 'Electra' which is a very cool track. Also the track 'Annica' which I believe was on the Japanese pressings but I personally had never heard it so that was cool too. I love hearing live tracks too, especially these unreleased tracks from the vaults of Dio. I have always been a huge Dio fan that wanted anything and everything. If you already have the 2000 version of Magica and dont care for all the unreleased 'extra' stuff the original disc sounds really good still. The overall sound on the new remastered disc is a little better to me, but not a huge difference as the album was not really that old to begin with. Overall personally I am very happy to have picked it up and to also be revisiting the Magica album.

I saw this tour and Ronnie and Co. played the entire Magica album from front to back. It was fantastic. Knowing he was doing that, I played the CD over and over again so that when I saw the show I would be familiar with the tunes. Great album.

I'd like to check out side by side clips or something just to hear how the sound is. I'm not a fan of the production on a lot of Dio albums so if the remaster provides an improvement that's great, but if it's too hot a'la new Queensrÿche no thanks.

For me I think it's really cool that suddenly this more obscure Dio record is everywhere. I remember it barely being noticed when it came out. 'Killing the Dragon' got way more attention.

Killing the Dragon is my favorite post-Campbell Dio record, period. Aldrich was such a great fit for the music and really brought in some ballsy riffs. But Magica was pretty fabulous. In fact, being someone who really doesn't care for concept albums, I'd have to say Magica is my all-time favorite concept album that I can think of off the bat.

I have those both on a double disc, both are great!

ultmetal wrote:

I saw this tour and Ronnie and Co. played the entire Magica album from front to back. It was fantastic. Knowing he was doing that, I played the CD over and over again so that when I saw the show I would be familiar with the tunes. Great album.

 I did the same thing. Greatest vocalist ever.       And then I saw him again in 2003 opening for Iron Maiden with Motorhead. My biggest musical regret is never getting to see RJD with Black Sabbath.  The best version of Sabbath ever.

bass63 wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

I saw this tour and Ronnie and Co. played the entire Magica album from front to back. It was fantastic. Knowing he was doing that, I played the CD over and over again so that when I saw the show I would be familiar with the tunes. Great album.

 I did the same thing. Greatest vocalist ever.       And then I saw him again in 2003 opening for Iron Maiden with Motorhead. My biggest musical regret is never getting to see RJD with Black Sabbath.  The best version of Sabbath ever.

Same here. I saw the Dio/Motorhead/Maiden tour in El Paso, TX.

I saw Ronnie with Heaven & Hell three times. The first time I saw them I was in awe! A friend of mine also went to that show. Megadeth opened I believe. I remember him coming up to me after the show and saying that Megadeth blew H&H off the stage. I thought Megadeth were good but Sabbath just drew me in and had me in awe. I thought he had to be kidding me, but that just goes to show you, different strokes for different folks.

Just bought this and it is the first time hearing Magica. I'm impressed. The two songs I can't get away from are Challis and As long as it's not about love, but the whole album is good. I was actually quite entertained by the Magica story. Ronnie is a great story teller and he is sorely missed. Stand out tracks in addition to the ones already mentioned are Fever Dreams, Turn to stone and Otherworld. Electra has Ronnie sounding a bit odd. As far as it being remastered, the sound is good, but I've only heard this remastered version so I have no way of knowing if it's better. The live tracks great considering they are boots and official at that. The computer voice at the beginning of a couple of the songs is a bit much after hearing it several times.

I bought this album around when it first came out, and was really never able to get into it.

When I first heard of this reissue coming out, I re-visited the album on Spotify. Still not too into it. I mean, it's Dio, so it's not terrible by any means. But I just don't get too into it. And I normally really like concept albums, even if I don't always get what the story is.

Meant to post here a while ago when I bought the re-release. It's good. But it's loud. For being touted as a remaster, it has a good amount of compression on it. That said, the music is great as always and the bonus tracks fit right in. Even the "live bootlegs" are an exciting listen. I'd still like to grab a copy of the original, but this is decent. Not brickwalled, mind you, but still maxed.

My local CD store just got my special ordxer of Magica Deluxe Edition. Will be picking up on payday -cannot wait...I love Dio