bit of a rude awakening". He also disliked having to restrict his playing in order to accommodate the orchestral passages. With Magnification being the first album to feature him as the sole guitarist since Keys to Ascension 2 (1997), he was pleased with the absence of another player interfering. Having finished his acoustic solo album Natural Timbre (2001) two weeks prior to working on Magnification, Howe realised he was "carrying a lot of expertise" in regard to the acoustic guitar which greatly influenced his acoustic playing on it, leading to "some good pictures" as a result. After being unhappy that his guitar was minimised in the first mix of the album, Howe insisted on—and got—a second mix which satisfied him. Songs "Can You Imagine" features Squire on lead vocals with Anderson on backing vocals. It was originally recorded as a demo in 1981 for the proposed supergroup XYZ featuring Squire, White, and Jimmy Page. "In the Presence Of" originated from a passage that White played on a piano in the studio which Anderson noticed and wished to develop it further for the album. White came up with it "in the middle of the night" several years prior to recording. One track features Squire and White playing an organ together and was recorded in a recording session that White recalled was particularly funny. White agreed with an interviewer that some of the lyrics in "Spirit of Survival" were uncharacteristically dark and what he described as "pretty eerie", particularly in the wake of the September 11 attacks that occurred on the album's scheduled release day in North America. Artwork In a departure from their previous four albums, the cover art for Magnification was not designed by English artist Roger Dean. Despite producing "a lot of work" for the album, Dean claimed the record company did not present his art to the band; Howe says that Anderson insisted that Dean not be offered the commission. In the end, the group went with a design by Bob Cesca which features the logo Dean designed in 1972. Howe calls it "a lacklustre dull and dark image that did nothing but disappoint the fans and me." In 2021, Cesca released a 20th anniversary special edition of the Magnification cover art. Release Magnification was released on 10 September 2001 by Eagle Records in the United Kingdom, under a license agreement between Beyond Music and the band's company,