The Magia Nera refuses to die, perhaps wrapped in the dark spell that they spread with their moniker. They were formed in the late 60s and early 70s ... but more than four decades later they debuted with the masterpiece " L’Ultima Danza di Ophelia ". If that fabulous 'post dated' album was a release, the new "Montecristo" is today's stuff, new material ... even if the vintage sound of these 'old kids' (they say it!) Remains inextricably linked to other fabulous times. "Montecristo" is a concept based obviously, and poetically, on the nineteenth-century literary work of the same name by A. Dumas, in which the band injects theatricality, lyrics (in Italian), digressions, progressions, sounds, instruments and everything else that a band basically prog is able, can and must offer. The album is divided into four chapters, "Betrayal", "Captivity", "Escape" and "Vendetta", faithfully following the appendix novel published in 1844. Each chapter, with a perfect subdivision, includes three tracks, which punctually mark the events of the environmental book in Italy, France and in the Mediterranean Sea. With this approach, the band follows the pages by offering prog ramblings, intense vocal lines, theatrical acting (as in " Requiem per l’Abate Farìa"), all with a destabilizing and pure, original, infinitely sincere stylistic freedom. "Montecristo" is not a record divided into chapters or songs; "Montecristo" is a unique poem from start to finish ... poem made of words, voices, musical instruments, with intense bass lines, fabulous Hammond, divine guitars, superlative drumming. This is Music, with a capital M. The Black Magic, with humility and dedication, give the world another work of art!