Shambala

As if it wasn’t enough what they heave done in their ‘debut’ album, Luxaeterna, Aquaria was able to raise Brazilian music to an unbelievable level in Shambala. Mixed with that European kind of power metal, we find percussions, flutes, berimbaus, and a sort of instruments that will drive you to some tribe of Brazilian Indians.

You may think metal was forgotten among this overdose of tribal music, well, that’s so wrong. Shambala brings us fast melodic songs, good ‘double-basses’ drumming work by nice young drummer Bruno Agra. But the major highlight here is their vocalist Vitor Veiga, his voice sounds like a mixture of Michael Kiske with Biff Byfford and, sometimes, reminds the listener of Andre Matos, from their countrymen Angra.

In fact, there’s a lot of Angra’s influence in this CD, but they’ve their real personality, and you can easily distinguish an Aquaria song. Their music has developed well since Luxaeterna, yet, I miss the tambourines that were so present in their first album, and it worked really fine. Even though there aren’t tambourines, we can hear some excellent percussion like in ‘Expedition’ or ‘Heart of the Gods’.

The production is also perfect, you can listen to all instruments perfectly and the vocals and backing vocals sound perfect. Everything is really well done, from the double-basses to the Brazilian corals. This release is really heavy and awesomely melodic, the vocals are the highlights.

Highlights: Expedition, Heart of the gods, Skies Of Amazonia.