ANGRA – Angels Cry

Andre Matos is one of those Metal singers all have heard at one time or another, be it directly or as a guest on other bands’ work. Starting up with the band Viper, his singing has always made a statement when it comes to having personality and range. With the release of the album Soldiers of Sunrise, Viper achieved great success with most Brazilian Metalheads with their Traditional Heavy Metal style, but it was with the album Theatre of Fate that they achieved worldwide recognition. After the release of their second record, stating musical differences, Andre Matos left Viper and went on to form a new band.

After struggling on to find the other band members, Angra recorded a demo tape called Reaching Horizons. This demo was enough for them to get a good manager’s attention, and this manager sent their demo tape overseas. After making some contacts on Germany, they finally got the opportunity to record an album.

With the help of the Sascha Paeth (unknown at the time) and Charlie Bauerfeind, the band crafted their first record, with heavy guitars, non-stop double-bass drums, Symphonic segments, and Classical influences. Their drummer at the time, Marco Antunes, didn’t get to actually record the album, as his technical skills were found to be inferior to the rest of the band, and he was temporarily replaced by Alex Holdswarth — at the time, Sieges Even’s drummer and currently part of the band Rhapsody.

The first song, “Unfinished Allegro,” is a version of the Classical piece “Allegro Moderat” by Schubert, with an ending that leads to the next song, “Carry On.” This track demonstrates what Angra and the whole album are all about. With a very fast tempo, the song highlighted all of the band’s magnificent writing, and all the orchestration work done by Andre Matos, Sascha Paeth, and Charlie Bauerfeind.

The next song, “Time,” has a huge influence from what is known as Power Metal, and despite its harpsichord intro, the song ends up in the Power mood. The song “Angels Cry” shows off more orchestration work, while not being as fast as “Carry On.” After the first chorus, the songs get into an Arabic atmosphere, and return to a headbanging riff. The guitar solo starts off with Paganini’s “24th Caprice,” another classical reference in the album. Then comes in “Stand Away,” with an acoustic guitar and vocals intro. The first chorus surprises with heavy orchestration and an almost operatic choir. It also shows off all of Andre’s singing range, with astounding highs that never sound piercing to the ear. “Never Understand” unveils the band’s Brazilian origins, using local influences from a style known as “Baião” … very popular in Brazil’s Northeastern states. The song features most of the guest participants in the album, including solos from Kai Hansen and Dirk Schlächter, both from Gamma Ray, and Sascha Paeth, the album’s producer and Heavens Gate’s guitar player.

The Speed Metal version of Kate Bush’s “Wutering Heights” from the Reaching Horizons demo was changed and recorded very similar to the original, featuring Thomas Nack from Gamma Ray on the drums. The next song is “Streets of Tomorrow,” with heavy guitar riffs and it’s the album’s most common sounding song. Then, in comes “Evil Warning” with huge keyboards, nice guitars, and another Classical reference: Vivaldi’s “ Winter,” a song that would later be featured on an EP with a different vocals version, along with remixed versions of “Angels Cry” and “Carry On.” The album ends up with the mellow-sounding “Lasting Child,” which is as close to a Classical piece as a Metal song can get.

In a time when there was no such thing as Melodic or Symphonic Metal, this album had a huge impact on the Metal universe, and lots of bands still are influenced by it. Producer Sascha Paeth states that he didn’t do anything similar before the record, and that it was later that bands like Kamelot, Rhapsody, and Edguy would come to him wanting more of the orchestration he introduced to the Metal world with this record.