Andre Matos is dead

[elendil]

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/former ... ead-at-47/

[LarryD]

I'm speechless ........ I don't know what to say. So tragic.

[elendil]

I've been watching 90s Angra bootlegs on Youtube all afternoon. Most are of really crappy quality, but this one is quite good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl3OBhq15mc

Angra on Brazilian MTV in 1994. Andre's like 22! Listen to the end to hear the drummer burst out with some (improvised?) gruff vocals on "Angels Cry"! Oh the nostalgia...

[Mardoch]

RIP

[prog_powermetal99]

Damn! This sucks so bad! way too young.....

[ToddS]

RIP Andre

[elendil]

I'm still pretty devastated by this, even though Andre hadn't made any really great new music lately. He seemed like such a nice guy, and 90s Angra was a formative part of my young adulthood. They're one of the few metal bands my wife likes, and so several of their songs take me right back to those days when we were just married and wandering around Connecticut...

You might be able to make a case that Angra was the best metal band of the 90s. The main competitors to that throne for me would be Dream Theater and Opeth. Angra made three virtually perfect albums. I'd say Dream Theater and Opeth really only had two to reach that standard. Most people think _Fireworks_ was below the level of _Angels Cry_ and _Holy Land_. Maybe it is, marginally, but only marginally. Over time it grew on me, and I've probably spun it often as the other two. I don't really understand why so many seem to prefer _Rebirth_ - a great album - to _Fireworks_. They're both more power metal-y, but _Fireworks_ has the melodic warmth and lyrical depth that _Rebirth_'s more triumphant, steely sound lacks.

If you press me really hard, I would probably say _Holy Land_ was their best, and quite plausibly Dream Theater's two best albums and Opeth's two best albums are right at the level of _Holy Land_ (all in my top ten of all time).

Neither Angra nor Andre (in Shaman or solo) was the same after the split. 90s Angra was truly more than the sum of its parts, and guitarists Kiko Loureiro and Rafael Bittencourt have to be seen as important a part of that recipe as Andre was. Andre was more than a vocalist: he played keyboards, wrote lyrics, and contributed to the music. The world music and classical elements of Angra's sound really faded after his departure, and, again, the songwriting was somehow less warm and intimate.

If you make allowances for the fact that he was not writing in his native language, Andre's lyrics were often excellent. Probably his greatest triumph in that department is "Metal Icarus" from _Fireworks_. I read it as an elliptical tale of a boy's bonding over metal with an older teenager who had to face some demons. Wistfulness, nostalgia, and a dash of tongue-in-cheek humor are all in evidence.

RIP.

[gazinwales]

I'll admit that I shed a tear or two when I heard the very sad news.
Angra was part of my musical education in the 1990's, though the CD's were pretty hard to get hold of.
Holy Land is indeed a prog metal classic, the band took a huge risk with this one after the debut album.

Yes Angra and Andre were never the same after the split, I actually lost interest in both of them.
Andre does leave behind a great musical legacy and some releases that I skipped i definitely will be checking out.

What really hit hard for me is that he was 3 years younger than me.

[prog_powermetal99]

As a huge fan of Angray and Matos, I definitely shed tears when I saw this.........So beautiful and sad at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10kD6DyFL1E

[Sir Exar Kun]

Elendil really nails a lot of my feelings right on the head.

This one hit hard; it's been quite some time since any of my rock "favorites" have died, and to hear this out of the blue on Saturday..... And finding out he's only a year older than I am..... All comes as a big shock.

Angra was, for a time, my favorite band on the planet. Dream Theater had dropped off a bit with "Falling into Infinity", and Queensryche leaped off the proverbial cliff, so in the mid to latter nineties we were desperately looking to find interesting music anywhere we could..... Thankfully, at college we had easy access to the internets and could hit the newsgroups for names of bands that we would then go to local shops to try and import. A few local stores actually carried random discs from some of these bands that we would blindly stumble on. Angra was one of those.... I had not heard a single note of Angra's music, but knew the name to be very highly regarded, so I dropped $30 on a blind purchase of a Japanese import copy of "Holy Land". It was an eye opening experience. Right away "Holy Land" become one of my favorite discs of the era.

Sure, it had the customary power metal elements that I was becoming more and more enthralled with, but it had something that NO ONE else was doing.... Incorporating heavy piano work, orchestrations, and Latin elements to the music that set it completely apart from everyone else. To my ears, it was elevating music just like "Images and Words" did a few years earlier.... And Andre Matos was the centerpiece of that.

When Andre left Angra, Edu came in and did an admirable job, but it was not the same. "Rebirth" was an attempt to clone "Angels Cry" (and I do like "Rebirth" a lot), but then they went in a different direction afterwards with varying degrees of success. "Temple of Shadows" was solid, but the two other albums with Edu were both subpar. They also lost a lot of the uniqueness and became more of a traditional power metal band rather than something SPECIAL like the first three discs.

I would have loved to see more output from Andre post-Angra..... Shaman was good, but just carried on what he was doing with Angra. His work with Sascha Paeth on VIrgo was very good, but also lighter...... His three solo albums all were very solid, but again..... Missing a little something in the "UMFF" department..... What he created with Angra was truly magical and cannot be replaced.

[elendil]

I listened to _Ritual_ today and it really is a great album. But it is also extremely dependent on Andre's vocals and on the keyboards. The composition is excellent though it's lacking excitement in the lead guitar department compared to Angra. But it definitely prompts me to listen to Shaman's later stuff, his solo work, Symfonia, etc. Like gazinwales, I'd sort of lost track of what he was up to, and I'm sure there are some gems I haven't heard yet.

[gazinwales]

If your a big fan of Holy Land then this bootleg of demo's contain the full set of songs of the original HL concept.
https://www.discogs.com/Angra-Eyes-Of-C ... e/10043846
Has a couple of songs that I think remain officially unreleased still.

[elendil]

Cool, gotta look those up.

Heh, and I just discovered that the lyrics to "Metal Icarus" were actually written by Chris Tsangarides and Rafael Bittencourt!

[elendil]

Kiko is pure class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4_Cq74U_qQ

[elendil]

Here's a classic-period Angra track I'd never heard before! "Rainy Nights," released only as a single and a Japanese bonus track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjfDCiy ... dex=4&t=0s

[GaetanL]

Here's a classic-period Angra track I'd never heard before! "Rainy Nights," released only as a single and a Japanese bonus track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjfDCiy ... dex=4&t=0s

Also included in the US edition of the album! (Fireworks)

[AllMediaReviews]

this has been one of the hardest musician deaths for me to fathom.

The guy was my favorite singer for many years, and a wonderful composer/arrangerand even though it's been a long time since he seemed active, it just seems hard to believe he is gone, and at the age of only 47.

And I never got to see him live either which sucks.

[LarryD]

this has been one of the hardest musician deaths for me to fathom.

The guy was my favorite singer for many years, and a wonderful composer/arrangerand even though it's been a long time since he seemed active, it just seems hard to believe he is gone, and at the age of only 47.

And I never got to see him live either which sucks.

***Same here -- I've always wanted to see him play live ...... Holy Land was a disc introduced to me by Erik Welty back in the day .... and it paved the way for the Brazilian sounds in the music that Andre was so noted for .... It was a very special disc for me at a very special time, and I always said that I can't wait to see Andre play this stuff live ..... having him leave Angra was one thing, but having him leave life is another..... R.I.P. Andre - your music will never be forgotten ......

[elendil]

Did he ever even perform in the U.S.? My guess would be that if he did, it would have been with Shaman in the early aughts. Because people in this country have terrible taste, I'm pretty sure we missed out on all Angra touring in the 90s even as they played to huge crowds in Brazil, Japan, France, and elsewhere.

[introclaus]

Did he ever even perform in the U.S.? My guess would be that if he did, it would have been with Shaman in the early aughts. Because people in this country have terrible taste, I'm pretty sure we missed out on all Angra touring in the 90s even as they played to huge crowds in Brazil, Japan, France, and elsewhere.

I saw them a few times back in the day, and besides festivals they really didn’t play “huge crowds” in Europe back then either.

[elendil]

I guess I should qualify "huge." Not outdoor stadiums that seat tens of thousands, but indoor arenas that seat thousands. See for instance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8uH2kmun60 .

[introclaus]

I guess I should qualify "huge." Not outdoor stadiums that seat tens of thousands, but indoor arenas that seat thousands. See for instance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8uH2kmun60 .

That’s from a festival though - it wasn’t just Angra. It was also Dimmu Borgir, Gamma Ray, Edguy, Vanden Plas, Royal Hunt and more ... all bands with a solid following in France.

[elendil]

I guess I should qualify "huge." Not outdoor stadiums that seat tens of thousands, but indoor arenas that seat thousands. See for instance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8uH2kmun60 .

That’s from a festival though - it wasn’t just Angra. It was also Dimmu Borgir, Gamma Ray, Edguy, Vanden Plas, Royal Hunt and more ... all bands with a solid following in France.

Ah, OK, didn't realize.