Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Angra
Label: Edel Records
Released: 2015
Running time: 49:04
Rating: 4.5/5
It’s been 24 years since this remarkable Brazilian band came into the world. Once Angra landed under the wing of SPV Records and put out the albums »Angels«, »Holy Land« and »Firewioks«, they set standards in metal that nobody had heard before, and that put them on the world metal map almost overnight. The band has always been famous for its outstanding technical polish and virtuosic interplay, its ultra-melodic accessibility, and its one-of-a-kind blend of classical music elements with traditional South American melos. So yes, Angra count as progressive metallers. Unlike the progressive metal titans Dream Theater, though, Angra always kept their arrangements highly compact despite the complexity underneath, so their songs always had the feel of a finished, tight package, with verse and chorus clearly front and center. The band never got tangled up in the kind of progressive experimenting where everything falls apart into compositional fragments that can be hard to digest at times, which is something we can’t always say about Dream Theater.
Let me step out of the opening philosophizing. Angra are known for the moodiness of their members, so their career is a colorful parade of exits and arrivals. Looking back over the years, it’s frankly fascinating that Angra still exist at all. However you look at it, two names are essential for this band to make new music: founding guitarist Rafael Bittencourt and, of course, the exceptional Kiko Loureiro, who has already dropped by Ljubljana twice for his guitar clinics.
Four years after the release of »Aqua« (2010), the crew went through yet another lineup shake-up. First vocalist Edu Falaschi left the band, replaced back in 2013 by the esteemed Italian singer Fabio Lione (Rhapsody of Fire, Vision Divine, ex-Labirynth), and a year later drummer Ricardo Confessori walked out on Angra for the second time in his career. Before the recording of the new album »Secret Garden« began, he was replaced by the young, barely 23-year-old Bruno Valverde!
Secret Garden shows an impressive maturing of the band’s creative core, the two guitarists Loureiro and Bittencourt. The songs once again deliver every virtue Angra have always been prized for, and they still rank among the best progressive metal acts out there, with a distinctive, self-authored and polished musical identity. Their sound is instantly recognizable to anyone in the know, and utterly unique. If the band hadn’t been plagued by lineup instability throughout their career, they’d probably have earned bigger commercial success, but as it is, interest in Angra’s music has dropped off sharply among the masses in recent years. Luckily, the quality remains!
It all coexists in a remarkable compositional and arranging pragmatism that serves up a brilliant mix of ultra-melodic catchiness and highly atmospheric, superior drama-theater tension, riding waves of shifting moods across the whole album. »Secret Garden« is once again an exceptionally dark album. Angra first served up that kind of darkness in earnest on »Temple of Shadows« (2004). The songs Black Hearted Soul and Perfect Simmetry carry the sentiment of older tracks like the classics Angels Cry or Nova Era, and here and there the band again works tribal undercurrents into the rhythmic textures (Newborn Me (with a flamenco passage on acoustic guitar), Final Light, Upper Levels), which also evoke the band’s familiar classic face from the days of the mini epic suite Carolina The IV. The opening track Newborn Me already brings all the typical hallmarks of Angra’s recipe for progressive metal, with progressively broken rhythms (verse, transitional pre-chorus, a superb »mid-eight« passage) and the atmospheric crescendo of a highly singable, melodic chorus. Those of you looking for an overdose of progressive elements on the new album will be especially thrilled by Upper Levels, which is surely the creative peak of the record! There’s plenty of reaching for classical music elements again, and they mostly gravitate toward the middle »mid-eight« sections of the compositions, where Louriero and Bittencourt usually take a full run-up to show off some technically brutal instrumental passages of their brilliant guitar playing. The band approached the arrangements with real hair-splitting precision and once again delivered an album of top-class artistic brilliance
Two special moments on the album are the guest female vocals. The first belongs to Simone Simons. She opens the title track in an almost chanson-like style, which stays ballad-like at first but later grows into a symphonic epic metal suite. A mezzo-soprano with a bang. The second guest vocal is even a touch more interesting. In the distinctly dark Crushing Room, Doro Pesch steps in for a duet, adding a good dose of throatiness to her recognizable voice, which creates a special kind of theater, not just in the song but across the whole album.
Angra return with an excellent album in their pocket. At first, Fabio Lione was the biggest question mark, mostly because of his not exactly successful reinterpretation of Angra classics on the live album »Angels Cry 20th Annyversary Tour«, but on »Secret Garden« the guy proved that his recognizable operatic edge fits right into the band’s layered compositional approach. The album never runs out of dynamite. And it runs out of sparkling ideas even less. It’s brimming with compositional freshness and, as always, a seriously fascinating balancing act of arranging variety and top-shelf melodic seasoning! The Brazilian metal nightingales are back, then, and hitting with full force! Bursting with energy like they haven’t been in a long time!
Lineup
Fabio Lione – vocals
Rafael Bittencourt – guitar, backing vocals
Kiko Loureiro – guitar
Felipe Andreoli – bass guitar
Bruno Valverde – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Simone Simons vocals on track no. 7
Doro Pesch vocals on track no. 9
Production
Jens Bogren
Track list
01. Newborn Me
02. Black Hearted Soul
03. Final Light
04. Storm Of Emotions
05. Synchronicity II
06. Violet Sky
07. Secret Garden
08. Upper Levels
09. Crushing Room
10. Perfect Symmetry
11. Silent Call
