Magi
Win Or Lose (black)
First time authorized reissue of Rust Belt hard rockers Magi's 1976 privately-pressed hard rock nugget 'Win Or Lose', originally issued on the infamous Uncle Dirty's Sound Machine label. 'Win Or Lose' carries similar glimmers to other vulgar, pre-PC, mid-Amerigan rock whose stock-in-trade boy meets girl early rock'n'roll topicry could easily be pulled from the Rock 101 playbook, but Magi was more than mired in muscle and machismo. Magi displayed the general insouciance, hormones, and discontent of their age, but also a concerned and wounded heart underneath the veneer, much less common to the field. While essentially a meat-and-potatoes hard rock record, the album flies closer to the early '70s beginnings of the genre (with nuance and psychedelic hangover in tow), when the definition was less rigidly and generically defined, and is additionally expertly sequenced across its eight strong tracks, improved by a masterful mix and remaster by T. Dallas Reed (Electric Wizard, Iron Claw, Mos Generator, Orange Sunshine, Poobah, Saint Vitus, Treepeople, Truth And Janey, et al.), utilizing a reel-to-reel from the original recording sessions. In-depth and informative liner notes by Jeremy Cargill (Got Kinda Lost/NTS Radio) and Patrick Lundborg. As the uncredited seeker who penned the original rear sleeve text expressed... "Energy is apparent, the subtleties are there, listen, there's no question how they feel! Feel it with them! Feel the Magi!" "...quite contemporary in style for its 1976 release year. Regional and local bands tend to lag behind dominating music trends by a few years, but Magi's sound seems entirely in line with then popular acts like Aerosmith, early Kiss, and maybe Ted Nugent." ~Patrick "The Lama" Lundborg (The Acid Archives). RIYL: Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult, '70s Alice Cooper, Eternity, Foghat, Grand Funk Railroad, James Gang, Led Zeppelin, Lodestar, (early) Ted Nugent, Orang-Utan, et al.