Though best known for their magnificent but obscure 1988 album "Dies irae", the Soviet band MAGNIT’s earlier recordings show them in transition as they adopted a heavier sound and moved away from the prog-rock covers of classical pieces on their first self-titled recording. Amid the decline in popularity of classical music and the increasing influence of Western rock ushered in by the opening of the Soviet Union through Gorbachev’s glasnost reforms, MAGNITset aside the classical covers in favor of highly technical, melodic hard rock and power metal compositions. Owing to their original release on reel-to-reel tape, the band’s two EP-length recordings from 1987, "Detective" and "Listen to Rock", were practically lost until their release on CD earlier this year by the Russian label GS Productions. Though classically trained and folk-influenced, MAGNIT exhibited an intuitive understanding of heavy music, featuring tempestuous riffing, incisive lead guitars, ornamental keyboard and organ, and commanding vocal performances. Though perhaps more cerebral than most Western power metal bands, ??????’s spirted composition and performance—free of the corporate metal trappings that saturated the international scene—sharpened the edge of the band’s unique sound. This LP compiles, for the first time on vinyl, all of the tracks from the 1987 tapes, as well as a bonus track taken from the four-way split 7” released in 1990—the last track MAGNIT released before breaking up.