Angra -- because we ran out of ideas.

I just took a few spins of Angra's new album Aurora Consurgens. I can't help but notice that the album feels like it's composed of three distinguishable parts -- old Angra, new Angra, and... Dream Theater? The guitar work is obviously much more Petrucci-esque this time around, and man... Edu even sounds eerily like LaBrie on Breaking Ties. Does anybody else get the impression that Angra stole a page from DT's playbook for their new album?

I have only heard a few songs off Auro Consurgens, and it wasn´t anything like I was expecting, maybe it´s one of those albums that needs a few listens to get "into" before forming opinions?

I would place Holy Land at the top of Angra's releases by a fairly good distance. Temple of Shadows was pretty good too, but the rest of the releases weren't so hot (Fireworks in particular was just... bad). I don't regard Edu too highly; Matos was a much better vocalist. However, Edu sounds (very) slightly better on Aurora Consurgens than he has previously, in my humble opinion. Honestly, I was really watching for Aurora to see where Angra was going. Temple of Shadows saw them falling more toward prog than they had in releases since Holy Land. But what I see in Aurora is really something that can be best judged as either a transition or a compilation -- either they're becoming something or they're holding on to something. It's a bit difficult to tell where Angra will go from here.

Don't get me wrong, I actually do like quite a bit of Aurora Consurgens... it's just that the tracks don't feel the slightest bit like a whole album. Their only consistent distinction from previous work is the heavier sound. Other than that, you've got songs in more power metal style, then others in a heavier, more controlled metal sound. They're quite distinct from one another. The Course Of Nature isn't the traditional Angra power metal sound. Salvation: Suicide is. In fact, Salvation: Suicide might as well have been on Rebirth. So Near So Far and Course of Nature, though, resemble more the Holy Land era Angra -- but the DT influence is obvious in both songs, as well as the aforementioned Breaking Ties. The guitar work on Ego Painted Grey reminds a bit too much of Dream Theater's The Mirror from the album Awake.

The T, have you heard Temple of Shadows, by the way? Oh, and Holy Land was full of double bass too -- Carolina IV anyone? :). That didn't stop it from being great prog metal.