With a ten-piece line-up and a musical approach that just screams “let’s throw everything at the wall and see if it sticks”, Mägo de Oz may come across as sort of a traveling circus rather than a band. And, to be fair, ‘Malicia: La Noche de las Brujas’ is on the verge of becoming a mess pretty much the whole time. What it has over many other Mägo de Oz albums, however, is that it has a strong focus despite the breadth of its stylistic scope. The highly accessible, yet surprisingly adventurous songwriting and spirited performances just work incredibly well.

It may sound strange to say this about Spain’s biggest folk metal band, but I have always thought Mägo de Oz is better as a power metal band with folk elements rather than the other way around. That is exactly the direction they took for ‘Malicia: La Noche de las Brujas’. There are Celtic-style melodies galore, but they are all laid down on top of a solid foundation of contemporary power metal and melodic hard rock. One could compare the music to a less intricate, more accessible version of what Elvenking has been doing for the last decade or so.

As folky as the songs occasionally get, most of the material on the album seems to be built around the vocal melodies. Understandable, as Rafa Blas is a downright fantastic singer worth making space for. The band seems to know how to do so a little better than on ‘Alicia en el Metalverso’, his already quite impressive 2024 debut with Mägo de Oz. Celtian singer Xana Lavey debuts here, and she gets more space than I expected. Initially, I thought her timbre might be a bit too sweet, until I heard how she can let it rip on ‘Mi Cuerpo y Yo Nos Dejamos de Hablar…’.

Ultimately, ‘Malicia: La Noche de las Brujas’ especially surprised me because none of its singles impressed me much. They aren’t even the catchiest tracks on here. ‘Los Fantasmas de la Fe’ instead shouts arena rock hit to me, while the yearning ‘Ríos de Lágrimas’, the catchy ‘Halloween (Almas Sin Luz)’, and the dynamic ‘No Me Dejes Solo’ are all better melodic rockers than the singles. A lot of the album is quite upbeat, so when the band goes a bit darker like they do on ‘El Último Rezo’, it truly stands out in the best way possible. The nine-minute opener ‘Malicia’ is the riffiest song here, and as such, one of the absolute highlights.

Sure, Mägo de Oz can sound a bit cheesy if you aren’t used to this style. But if you like your metal highly melodic, bombastic, folky and just plain joyful, there aren’t many releases on which you can find more of it than on ‘Malicia: La Noche de las Brujas’. And not just because the album is nearly eighty minutes long. In the end, it’s the songwriting and the near-perfect arrangements that make the album what it is. ‘Malicia: La Noche de las Brujas’ is easily my favorite Mägo de Oz album José Andrëa doesn’t sing on, and it actually surpasses a few he does appear on as well.

Recommended tracks: ‘Ríos de Lágrimas’, ‘El Último Rezo’, ‘No Me Dejes Solo’