Angra – Temple Of Shadows

After being absolutely blown away by Angra's 2001 album Rebirth, I had very high expectations for the band's follow-up album Temple of Shadows. Part of that is due to the incredibly high quality of Rebirth, and part is due to the fact that the band made us wait three long years for this album. Either way, once I finally heard Temple of Shadows I was both over and under-whelmed.

I was overwhelmed due to the fact that Temple of Shadows is an extremely ambitious, musically adventurous concept album. You can tell that Angra put a tremendous amount of time and energy into this album. The songwriting, musicianship, orchestration, and production quality are all on par with Blind Guardian's A Night at the Opera album, and like that album, it takes several spins to really get into ToS. The persistence pays off though, as you'll soon start to really appreciate all that Angra accomplished with this album.

Temple of Shadows is a bit underwhelming in that it doesn't have the immediate impact that Rebirth had. I know it's not terribly fair, but I was expecting another album like Rebirth, and this is a totally different kind of album. As impressive as songs like "Spread Your Fire" and "Angels and Demons" are, they don't jump out at you right away the way nearly every song on Rebirth did. Again, once you've heard the album a few times you'll start to appreciate it more.

Angra isn't the kind of band to do the same thing twice, so Temple of Shadows is as different from Rebirth as Holy Land was to Angels Cry. In fact, Temple of Shadows comes across as a (much) heavier version of Holy Land. Both are ambitious concept albums that showcase a group of musicians who constantly evolve and challenge themselves. That's probably where the similarities end, as Temple of Shadows is a much heavier, much more aggressive effort than Holy Land, and the Brazilian elements that made Holy Land so compelling are not as evident on Temple of Shadows.

In the end, Temple of Shadows is a very satisfying Angra album, even if it wasn't exactly what I had expected. It goes without saying that this is a must-have for Angra fans, but most prog/power metal fans will want to check it out as well, if for no other reason than that Hansi Kurisch (Blind Guardian) and Kai Hansen (Gamma Ray) make guest appearances.

Edition Notes: The special edition of Temple of Shadows comes with a bonus live DVD. This isn't just some random collection of live footage either. It is the actual Live in Sao Paolo DVD that the band released a year earlier, which makes the Temple of Shadows special edition such a bonus.

The early import version of the Temple of Shadows special edition comes in a digipack with a poster, but the DVD won't play in US players. The US version of the special edition has an all-region DVD, but comes in a standard jewel case.