Magica

Wolves And Witches

Written by: TL on 08/12/2008 13:18:08

Last I heard, AFM were in the process of shifting promotional method from physical CDs to digital packages, which has little to with you dear reader, other than that you may join me in celebrating that the reviews in which I start out by whining over voice overs are effectively numbered. Long have I complained about the voice overs as they significantly subtract from the experience of listening to an album that you enjoy - And that's really the point of this introduction; to point out that I do in fact enjoy listening to the album in question, namely Magica's fourth studio album "Wolves And Witches".

This may or may not coincide with the fact that I am indeed among the many who were swept away with Nightwish's cover of "Over The Hills And Far Away" from a seven years ago, because the most effective way to describe what Magica sound like is to say that they pretty much sound like Nightwish did on that song, at least for the duration of "Wolves And Witches". The group are five-piece from Romania, playing classic power metal and fronted by a female Tarja Turunen fan. Like I said, I enjoy this album, so I mean no offence, but there's just no getting around how much Ana Mladinovici sounds like she's trying to copy Tarja. The extent to which she succeeds varies, granted, and sometimes her vocals don't sound 100% perfectly fitting for the music they're sung over, but overall, she does a fair job, even with her slight accent.

As for the rest of the band, the delightful thing about them really is that they're not trying to act like something they're not. They play loyal power metal to the letter with predictable song structures and solos, shamelessly chorus oriented, and seeing that it's what they want to do, I love that they're not trying to dress it up as something else to seem more trendy. No, they don't sound very original, no, they're not bringing anything new to the genre, and no they're not producing great art and hence they won’t be gifted with any of our major grades. They play what you expect them to play from the second you see their cover and style, and especially in the beginning of this album they even do it with some decent choruses to top things off. Overall it makes for a pleasant and easy listen, even if it doesn't instigate any musical revolutions.

Download: Don't Kill Me, They Stole The Sun
For The Fans Of: Nightwish, Within Temptation
Listen: myspace.com/magicaband

Release Date 14.11.2008
AFM Records

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