Conor Fynes 'Best Reached Horizons' - Angra (5/10)

When a band reaches a certain milestone, it’s traditional for something to be released in celebration. Therion, for example, released a collection of French pop covers for their 25th anniversary. In similar fashion, Angra’s “Best Reached Horizons” commemorates the band’s 20th year as a band. Consisting of two discs representing the band’s career up to this point, the compilation is a strong reflection of Angra’s material as a whole. However, with only a single song (a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”) as material exclusive to this release, “Best Reached Horizons” doesn’t offer much to interest the band’s fans.

When reviewing a compilation, I’m left in a tough position; is it better to review the music showcased, or the release in itself? I’ve been a fan of Angra for some time now, and regard them as one of the most technically impressive and accomplished bands in power metal. However, even if the quality of songs here is generally high, there’s little reason to recommend it over one of the original albums. As a two disc, two hour ordeal, it’s not exactly something that welcomes newcomers to the band. While I can appreciate the use of a ‘best-of’ compilation as an effective summary of a band’s career, for the sake of listening itself, there’s far greater satisfaction to be had in one of their full-lengths; might I suggest “Angel Cry” or “Temple of Shadows”?

Onto the music itself, there’s a fine selection of choice cuts throughout the band’s career. The two discs split material from the two vocalists represented (Andre Matos and his replacement, Edu Falaschi), and while the two are fairly similar in style, it was a cool idea to divide the two so that the band’s chronology might be better navigated. “Carry On”, “Angel’s Cry”, “The Course of Nature” and “Arising Thunder” are all highlights for me. On the low end, their cover of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” seems like a poor choice, largely due to a contrived vocal performance that tries too hard to reflect the original vocalist’s floaty delivery. The only thing here that should spark the interest of existing Angra fans is their cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”. Itself one of my favourite Zep tracks, Angra do a good job of reinvigorating it with their own style.

“Best Reached Horizons” makes for a fine afternoon of high-quality power metal. As a compilation however, the whole thing feels rather unnecessary. I mean, what newcomer is going to go into a band by picking up a two hour compilation, and what fans- sparing the hardcore completionists- are going to buy something consisting almost entirely of music they’ve already heard. It’s possible that I’m missing the point altogether, but as it stands, there are much better places to start with Angra than this.

adg211288 Best Reached Horizons is the first compilation album to be released by Brazilian power metal act Angra. The release covers the band’s whole discography and perhaps comes at an opportune time given that the band’s vocalist Edu Falaschi departed the band earlier in 2012 and having been with the band for over ten years and made four studio albums with them, it’s like the end of an era for the band. Best Reached Horizons contains two discs of material. The first covers the era of the band where André Matos was the vocalist, and the second Edu Falaschi’s era.

Now, personally speaking, being a compilation Best Reached Horizons naturally suffers from the same issue any compilation release faces, namely value for the artist’s existing fans. Big fans of the band will already have most of the material on offer on such a compilation, and may see such releases as a cash-in without considering that there is a very legitimate way that best of releases like Best Reached Horizons are very helpful to some people. People that somehow haven’t yet heard such a prolific act like Angra and want a good introduction to the band’s music need look no further than Best Reached Horizons to get that introduction.

And I was very much in the camp of lacking a proper introduction to the music of Angra when a promo for Best Reached Horizons came my way and after just one listen, made me both wish I’d paid more attention to these guys years ago and want to prioritise looking into their back catalogue properly. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what a good best of release should do.

It helps of course that a pretty killer sample of said catalogue has been compiled for the album. But since it’s guitarist Kiko Loureiro who handled picking the tracks it shouldn’t be in doubt that he’d do the catalogue justice as one of only two members who have played on every album by the band, the other being fellow guitarist Rafael Bittencourt, who provides liner notes for the release of Best Reached Horizons. I can’t say I enjoyed every song presented to the same level, in fact this release suggested to me personally that the Angra full-lengths to start with would be Temple of Shadows (2004), Holy Land (1996) and Angels Cry (1993).

There’s also a cover version of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir presented right at the end of the album. This is the only new offering within the package. I think it’s a decent cover, but it alone doesn’t really make the package worth it for existing fans unless of course they are collectors, in which case the presence of the song is neither here nor there. That’s the problem any best of release faces once again though and of course, as with any best of the album could be rated very differently depending on the perspective taken, but I’ve always upheld the rule that any rating given be based on the music alone, and on that count Best Reached Horizons is a more than satisfactory package.

8.0/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))