REBIRTH WORLD TOUR

Finally a proper live album from ANGRA, six years after the relative disappointment of (the too short) "Holy Live" comes the "REBIRTH TOUR" double disc, recorded as the cover reads "live in Sao Paulo". It's a great opportunity to listen to the new line up live. I have to say that the overall performance is by far tighter than the one from the Matos/Mariutti/Confessori line up on the "Holy Live" album.

Despite his young age, new bassist Felipe Andreoli sounds solid and pounding, just the way a good rock bass player must sound. New drummer Aquiles Priester does an impressive drum solo, after quoting the opening of the Judas Priest song "Painkiller" and some rather standard drum soloing he begins to play some Brazilian rhythms and particularly from 3:01 to 3:15 he sounded like two drummers playing together, that was good...

Regarding new singer Edu Falaschi, he shows to be a more than capable replacement for Andre Matos, personally I prefer Matos' voice and style, but I couldn't overlook the good job Falaschi did throughout this live record, he shines on all the "Rebirth" songs and makes the "Matos" songs his very own. Replacing a loved frontman is the toughest task on earth for a musician and Edu Falaschi succeeded. Not much to say about guitarists Rafael Bittencourt and Kiko Lureiro, they form a guitar team in the same ranks of Smith/Murray and Tipton/Downing.

I am not very fond of the "Rebirth" album, personally I would have preferred more songs from "Holy Land" but that is a minor complaint as I admit that the setlist is a good mix of the "Matos" material with the newer stuff. In my opinion the only weak point of this record is the unnecessary presence of the cover of Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast", Angra has plenty of original material for a live record, they don't need to cover someone else's music to complete a setlist, what is more the rendition of that song adds absolutely nothing to the original, in other words it is a filler.

This is such a great document of Angra live, but honestly hardly anything from this live album I could call prog-rock, in turn what we have here is some of the best heavy metal of the 90's. I'd always recommend the "Holy Land" album for it has most of the progressive material Angra has written.

So 3 stars for a progressive record and 4 stars for a heavy metal record. A must have for any Angra fan.

I knew the band from its landmark album "Rebirth" from metal community in my country. I was actually not interested to buy the album because I thought that it's basically a pure metal album. But I did try to purchase the album in its most economic format: the cassette version. It blew me away at first spin of the cassette, especially with tracks like "In Excelsis - Nova Era", "Acid Rain", "Millennium Sun", "Rebirth" and it grew on me significantly in relatively short period. So I did upgrade the format and bought the CD version of "Rebirth" plus other albums until "Temple of Shadows" and this double CD live set "Rebirth World Tour".

Time went by and couple of weeks ago we knew that the band planned a concert at The Loud Park Festival, Tokyo next October 14, 2006. So, the recently established rock organization in my country: i-Rock! - where I heavily involved with - did contact Angra's management to do the concert as well in Jakarta, Indonesia. Yeah, the deal was finally made and ANGRA Live in Jakarta is now planned for October 16, 2006. Since the deal was made, I have played all of the band's CDs and DVD including this "Rebirth World Tour" in preparation for the concert.

The live set kicks off in ambient mood with soft keyboard work "In Excelsis" as this short instrumental was used as opening track of Rebirth album. The crowd voices indicate the live vibes and it then continues with my all-time favorite track of Angra: "Nova Era". Wow! I really like this track as it has energy, power and melody - all of them are blend beautifully. The music is more on power metal like Helloween, Gamma Ray, Edguy, etc. but this "Nova Era" track has a symphonic touch especially with the work of keyboard. I also love the lyric as it's so motivating. In fact, one of i-Rock! founders was inspired by this song during the time when he experienced downturn in his professional life. "Nova Era brings the ashes back to life .." has helped him to elevate from life downturn and re-bounce back to much better life. You see . as I have mentioned many times in this web site through my reviews that music is emotion - in this case is that music is very motivating! It has helped someone's life from ashes back to life!

Another great song from Rebirth album "Acid Rain" follows excellently with its beautiful melody and tight composition. I like the music interlude part at the end chorus where Kiko plays his guitar augmented with Fabio Laguana's keyboard work and .. on this live version it is supported with Edu's singing "Ooo . oooo ..ooo". What a beautiful segment! What then follows is a title track of "Angel's Cry" album to pay a tribute for Angra's Matos era (before Edu Falaschi joined the band).

The band then revisit back to Rebirth album with "Heroes and Sand" followed with classic track "Metal Icarus" where Edu asks crowd participation to sing along with him. It's not as energetic as I expected but it indicates the band's willingness to stay close to their fans. And it returns back to Rebirth's "Millennium Sun" nicely. Disc One concludes with powerful drum solo by Aquiles Priester.

Disc Two starts with another excellent track of Rebirth album "Unholy Wars" followed with title track "Rebirth". Another all-time favorite of mine "Time" is also presented excellently. Oh man .. this track is so captivating for both versions: studio album (taken from the band's official debut album "Angel's Cry") as well as this live set. The combination of melody and music textures is really great. The structure is not also as straight as power metal music - it has proggy style as well. "Crossing" (taken from "Holy Land" album in which I reviewed months ago at this site) is also a very attractive to enjoy.

What is considered as closing track in Angra's concert is their classic hit "Carry On" (from Ange's Cry album) which requires a very high register note at vocal department. Fortunately, Edu can handle this matter brilliantly even though it does not sound as great as studio version. But I'm amazed that Edu can do it here.

For encore, the band plays Iron Maiden's classic track "The Number of The Beast".

Overall, this is an excellent live set from Angra. It has excellent performance with good sonic audio quality and excellent musicianship. If you are not familiar yet with ANGRA, you should not start from this album. I would recommend you with its excellent album "Rebirth" (2001).

My best recommendation is to attend their concert in Jakarta, Indonesia:

i-Rock! presents: ANGRA Live in Senayan Tennis Indoor Stadium, Jakarta, October 16, 2006. Be there! Or die!

Progressively yours,

Gatot Widayanto - i-Rock! Project Manager for ANGRA Live in Jakarta