Gillan – Magic

Great CD!! Gillans best, and most heavy metalish! It helps that Gillan enlisted Janick Gers on guitar, which elevated the album to a more heavy metal sound. The best songs are “Whats the Matter”, and “Living for the City”, which are more harder and faster songs. The bonus track CD version, includes 2 more hard rock / metal songs - “Smokestack Lightning”, and “Heltzer Skeltzer”, both super heavy

Excellent album, sound is spectacular in Metal Blade Cd. Just " South Africa " and "living a lie" are worth the whole album.

just a small correction: Matrix / Runout (A-side runout stamped): V· 2238 - A3

cheers

I bought this when it was first released, went to the Newcastle City Hall gig, for my 1st non-pub gig (these were the days when children didn't go to gigs!), & bought the T-shirt too!

The picture inside the Gatefold, was originally going to be "aqua-chromatic" (my word?) like Led Zeps - "In Through the Out Door" ltd innersleeve, i.e. Colours appear when wet (like Magic), but I think the budget ran-out. Ian Gillan was also financially bankrupted by the tour & bad investments & even ended up sleeping on a friends sofa, which was an extraordinary situation, for the ex-lead singer of one the the world's biggest bands (Deep Purple). His voice was wrecked too, by "nodes" on his vocal chords, but luckily an operation(s) saved his voice & Black Sabbath rescued his career/finances with the, at the time, slated Born Again LP, which is now a bit of a cult LP.

It's probably my least favourite Gillan album though, being a bit patchy in song quality & to me a weak (trying to be commercial) production sound. Noteworthy perhaps for the old Psychedelic trick of phasing on the drums on at least one track. If some of the tracks had been shorter, & Bernie Tormé was still present, it could have been up there with "Mr Universe".

BTW look at the promo-video for "Living For The City" on Youtube (other video streaming sites are available :-) , it's great fun.