ANSATA

Angra + Symphony X + Myrath = Crux Ansata

The fertile Brazilian heavy metal scene, from time to time, gives birth to very interesting bands. This past decade has proven that quite frequently and this relatively new band, Ansata, is here to show exactly that.

Hailing from the state of São Paulo, the country's heavy metal hub, the band presents a very solid progressive power metal through their debut album, Crux Ansata, which means Ankh in Latin. The album itself does not bring many new things to the table and mostly takes you through places you have already been before with other bands of the same genre. This is a normal, but very good, progressive metal album. I can say with much certainty that they are the Brazilian equivalent of the North American band Redemption: interesting tunes, very competent musicianship and composition, but nearly nothing new from the rest of the scene.

Besides that, exactly like in Redemption, the singer is the biggest thing the band have. He is what makes them stand out, except that, in Ansata's case, instead of technicality, the biggest quality that the vocalist has is his enthusiasm, his strong and powerful voice, what fits very well with the music played here.

The opening piece, the 15+ minute epic, divided in three pieces, Crux Ansata will set the pace for most, if not all of, the album: energetic, competent and powerful progressive metal. The problem is that the very same epic is the best piece of the whole album, which clocks at almost an hour. However, Ansata manages to hang on through all that and, in the end, despite the album not being as good as the opening song, the music is still very enjoyable, if you like progressive metal with a power metal twist.

As anyone can imagine just by looking at the cover, the music is very much influenced by Egyptian and middle-eastern themes, both in the music and in the lyrics. The latter mostly deal about antient Egyptian mithology and their underworld/afterlife and the former mostly incorporates bits of middle-eastern music, which are concentrated completely in the guitars and keyboards, similar to what Myrath does in their first album.

Grade and Final Thoughts

It is easy to like something you are already accustomed to see, specially when it is well crafted. This is what happens here, in Crux Ansata. Well crafted, well played and well sung, but generic music. By the way this album runs, I find that this band still has potential and that their next album could be the real thing, but this is very good as it is.

Ansata is a progressive metal band formed around 1997, disbanded in 2004 and reformed a couple of years later when they begun to work at their first album, named Crux ansata released in 2008. Progressive metal is thekey here with lots of symphonic moments, where guitar and keys has main role, but aswell the band relies a lot on vocal department. This debute album is ok, good, the problems being the voice of Malagueta when he reaches higher notes, to out of place here and the sound, to muddy for this kind of music when all instruments must sound crystal clear. Anyway good work overall, of course is alot to work to make some pretentions worlwide but I guess with consecvent work this obstacle will be overcome. All pieces has same level, not one is weak not one is in front, nice passages between guitar and keys. I will give 3 stars for Crux ansata, well played but not something realy solid, only good and nothing more.