The Magica Page

Dio's new masterpiece, Magica, will be released on March 20th in Europe and in the USA and on March 1st in Japan. The album was recorded at Total Access Studios in Redondo Beach, CA in the fall of 1999 and is produced by Ronnie James Dio.

The album will be released by Spitfire Records (http://www.spitfirerecords.com/) in the USA and Europe and on Polygram in Japan.

The Line-Up:

• Ronnie James Dio: Vocals and keyboards
• Jimmy Bain: Bass
• Craig Goldy: Guitars and keyboards
• Simon Wright: Drums

The Songs:

• Discovery
• Magica Theme
• Lord Of The Last Day
• Fever Dreams
• Turn To Stone
• Feed My Head
• Eriel
• Challis
• As Long As It's Not About Love
• Losing My Insanity
• Otherworld
• Magica - Reprise
• Lord Of The Last Day - Reprise
• Magica Story

The first single off the album will be Fever Dreams. Originally it was planned that Dio'll film also a promo video of the song in late February, but apparently because of loads and loads of interview requests etc the filming has been delayed until after the US and European tours. Fever Dreams is also available as MP3 file through Spitfire's web site and is included on a CD sampler included with German Rock Hard magazine!

The Japanese version of the CD will also have an instrumental bonus song titled Annica.

The Tour

Magica tour will start on March 21st at Ventura Theatre in Ventura, CA. They'll tour in the USA for about a month and then in the early May they're planning to continue touring in Europe. In June, probably, the tour will hit Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Later on, maybe Canada, Central and South America, as well as Russia. The tour dates will be found here.

The line-up on the US tour at least will be the above with Scott Warren playing the keyboards. In other countries, Chuck Garric (touring bassist for the Monsters Of The Millenium tour) might appear instead of Jimmy Bain, but that's not certain yet. Warming-up band might be Crimson Glory, but that hasn't been confirmed yet.

The set list should feature classic Dio songs we've not used to hear live, lots of stuff from Magica and some "must-to-have" Dio classics as well!

Ronnie and Wendy Dio are on a promo tour (i.e. talking to press members) in Europe for a two weeks starting on February 14th. The US promo tour will take part in early March - on March 4th on WNEW FM radio station in New York City, NY.

The Reviews

Be Warned! These reviews may contain spoilers about Magica, so you might want not to read them before you've listened Magica yourself!

• Tapio's review