EDU FALASCHI - Almah

Edu Falaschi - Almah

11 songs
42:09 minutes
***** ***
AFM

Bandpage

From a metal point of view, Brazil has been marked predominantly by two bands. Sepultura were always in charge for everything thrash, while the progressive and melodic side was provided for by Angra. Their vocalist, Edu Falaschi, has now decided to release his first solo record, and I have to admit that I was rather sceptical at first. Helped by members of Nightwish, Stratovarius and Kamelot, nothing could go wrong from a technical point of view, but what about the song writing? Edu Falaschi keeps everything rather pop, especially when it comes to compact songwriting. With only one song longer than five minutes and a modest running time of hardly three quarters of an hour, we could have expected more quantity, but fortunately there is nothing wrong with the quality.

Although the opener King is a surprisingly heavy attack, the following songs show that this is not just another Angra album. Of course the vocals sound familiar throughout, but it is also obvious that Edu Falaschi keeps a lot of space for his vocals, and no matter what you think of melodic hard rock or metal, he is one of the best singers in the genre.

On Scary Zone we get some South American percussion moments, although my highlights are the CD’s two last songs, Box Of Illusion and Almah, where the band throws overboard every notion of metal music and Edu Falaschi nearly sounds like an old-school crooner, like Barry Manilow trying to record an album. Although, not really…

Almah can sound disjointed at times, and I guess that was the intention, to see how many different genres can be crammed onto one small CD, but a whole album with more courageous ballads as those on the end, and this would have been a true milestone. As things are, Almah is still a very, very good solo effort by one of the world’s best rock vocalists.

Back to Reviews