HUNTERS AND PREY

After the rather excellent Rebirth album, Angra released this mixture of new tracks, acoustic takes on two Rebirth tracks, and rather unnecessarily a cover of Genesis' Mama. Hardly essential listening, though it would be a shame to miss "Eyes of Christ", plus the title track "Hunters & Prey" along with its Portuguese language version. I'm not a great fan of acoustic retakes, nor cover versions, so half this album is superfluous. But worth tracking down if you are particularly taken by Angra.

As a pointer, Angra are Brazilian prog metal, with elements of speed/thrash metal (though not too much as I dislike those genres), with some nice Latin American textures thrown into their sound. Excellent guitar work abounds, and for me vocalist Edu Falaschi was an upgrade on predecessor Andre Matos' rather nasal vocals. Holy Land is well regarded by prog fans (with Matos) but my recommendation would be to start with Rebirth, or Temple of Shadows.