ANGRA Trivia — 34 Entries
34 sourced facts about ANGRA.
Trivia
Angels Cry was recorded not in Brazil but in Germany. By the account on Kiko Loureiro's official site it was his first studio album, made when he was twenty-one; it was released worldwide, passed a hundred thousand copies, and was certified gold in Japan.
There is one line on the meaning of the name in the official profile published by Victor Entertainment, the band's Japanese label: ANGRA is said to mean "goddess of fire" in Brazilian myth. The page frames it as something reported rather than asserting it outright.
The 1991 line-up was five. At the centre was André Matos, formerly of VIPER. Around him came Rafael Bittencourt and Marco Antunes from the local band SPITFIRE, Kiko Loureiro from a jazz band, and Luís Mariutti from FIREBOX, a São Paulo group. A demo followed in 1992, album recording began in July 1993, and Angels Cry appeared that November.
Part of why Angels Cry sold in Japan was a reputation that predated the band. Victor's account has it that André Matos was already a known name there because VIPER's Theatre of Fate, from his previous band, had been a substantial hit in Japan; add Kiko Loureiro's playing and a music that fused heavy metal with classical, and the album passed a hundred thousand copies. It made them popular at a stroke.
ANGRA first played Japan in January 1997, the year after Holy Land, and the shows went well. The relationship held: they returned in December 1998, and appeared at LOUD PARK in 2006, 2010 and 2013.
Temple of Shadows (2004) is a concept album that crosses the story of a crusader knight with the present day. The conception and the musical level of it were highly praised, and the following year brought a successful Japanese tour with NIGHTWISH as special guests. Dennis Ward produced, as he had on Rebirth before it.
Aqua, from 2010, has a source text: Shakespeare's The Tempest. Ricardo Confessori had returned to the band the year before, and this was their seventh album with him back. For the record, the third album, Fireworks (1998), had been produced by Chris Tsangarides.
The drum chair moved about. Aquiles Priester, who had played from Rebirth onward, left in 2008; in 2009 Ricardo Confessori returned. Confessori then left a second time in May 2014, and Bruno Valverde, born in 1990, came in. As for the singer, when Edu Falaschi left in May 2012 he said he would concentrate on ALMAH and on production work — and when Kiko Loureiro could not appear because of Megadeth, it was ALMAH's guitarist Marcelo Barbosa who covered the live dates.
ANGRA formed in Brazil in 1991. It was put together by André Matos, the band's first singer, who appears on their first three albums. Their 1993 debut, Angels Cry, is described as the record that kicked the door open for Brazilian power metal.
The band's founding guitarist, Rafael Bittencourt, has said something about the name. Announcing their signing to Atomic Fire Records in 2023 he found the pairing funny, noting that the word Angra also refers to a place in Brazil where an atomic reactor was built in the 1970s. That nuclear plant, as he put it, was made to produce a kind of clean energy — a very powerful one, capable of saving the world or destroying it. He went on from there to say the new album would be a strong one.
André Matos did more than sing on Angels Cry. He recorded the vocals and the keyboards, and he wrote and arranged nine of the album's ten tracks — among them "Carry On," still one of the band's best-known songs.
Matos also sang lead on Holy Land (1996) and Fireworks (1998), then left in 2000 — and not alone: bassist Luis Mariutti and drummer Ricardo Confessori went with him. The three launched a band called SHAMAN, later respelled SHAAMAN over legal issues.
No permanent replacement for Falaschi came quickly. Unable to settle the position, in 2013 the band drafted in the Italian singer Fabio Lione, of Rhapsody of Fire, on what was meant to be a temporary basis. He stayed — and ended up fronting ANGRA for thirteen years.
In July 2023 ANGRA announced a deal with Atomic Fire Records and, with it, a tenth studio album — Cycles of Pain, set for 3 November. A record-release show was booked at the Tokio Marine Hall in São Paulo for the same day. Bittencourt framed the album as the third record of the band's third generation, meaning the era of its third singer: keeping the legacy while looking forward.
In November 2025 the Brazilian singer Alírio Netto officially replaced Fabio Lione. He had previously been in SHAMAN and Queen Extravaganza — which means ANGRA's fourth vocalist had once sung in the band André Matos formed after leaving.
On 26 April 2026, at the Bangers Open Air festival at the Memorial da América Latina in São Paulo, a long-awaited reunion took place: the line-up that made Rebirth (2001) and Temple of Shadows (2004) — guitarist Kiko Loureiro, singer Edu Falaschi and drummer Aquiles Priester — came back together. The current line-up played the same day, putting Fabio Lione, thirteen years the frontman, on the same bill as the newly arrived Alírio Netto.
In June 2026 ANGRA re-recorded "Pra Frente Brasil" with their current line-up and released a video for it. Miguel Gustavo wrote the song to support the Brazilian side at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, and it has stayed in the country's football culture across generations since. Blabbermouth notes that while it became a symbol of Brazil's third World Cup win, it also carries the weight of when it was made — under the military dictatorship, absorbed into the nationalist rhetoric of the time. ANGRA first took the song on in 2002, turning it into a heavy metal track.
André Matos died on 8 June 2019, aged 47. His official Facebook page stated the following day that the cause was a heart attack. The first confirmation came from Ricardo Confessori, ANGRA's former drummer, who had also played with him in SHAMAN.
ANGRA were due to play that night at Templo Music in São Paulo. Out of respect for their former bandmate they postponed it to 28 July. Their statement said it would make no sense to go on stage and play while they were crying for the loss of a companion on their journey who had been so large a part of their history — and that on this day their instruments were quiet, in mourning.
Kiko Loureiro's tribute starts a long way back. At fourteen, at the Rio Branco school, Matos was already a benchmark — everyone wanted to be like him, for the voice and for what he could do at a piano. Destiny, he wrote, united them for nine years. What they made and lived through in those years sits in the most special place in his memory, including the ridiculous dream of a world-famous heavy metal band that they used to talk about on the bus to rehearsals. The songs Matos wrote, he wrote, are timeless — and he added: play "Carry On."
When Kiko Loureiro's move to Megadeth was settled in 2015, his ANGRA bandmates put out statements sending him off. Rafael Bittencourt began by saying he still had goosebumps: he had known Kiko for years and nobody deserved the chance more, and since they were like brothers they always wanted the best for each other. As for ANGRA, he trusted Kiko to see through what he had committed to, and said he would remain part of their family regardless. Bassist Felipe Andreoli added that Megadeth were lucky to have him now, as ANGRA had been.
As for Japan, the May 2015 tour came after a long gap. There had been joint shows and festival appearances, but a headline visit of their own had not happened since December 1998, on the Fireworks tour — sixteen and a half years. Even counting tours of any kind, the last had been the co-headline run with Blind Guardian in 2007, eight years earlier.
On 2 April 2015 Megadeth announced that Kiko Loureiro had officially joined. Dave Mustaine's accompanying comment turns on a Japanese magazine: he had first met Kiko some eight years earlier, at a cover shoot for BURRN!. He did not know who the man was, but he could see he was enormously gifted and that the BURRN! staff held him in high regard. He found out afterwards, he said, quite how good a guitarist he was.
Leaving Megadeth did not put Kiko Loureiro back in ANGRA. Asked in July 2024 by Japan's Young Guitar about the possibility of guesting with them, he said that on the last two ANGRA albums — not being in the band — he had recorded a guest solo. He was touring heavily and had small children, and did not want to travel further to do a guest appearance. It might happen in future: he is friends with everybody, has a great history with ANGRA and the same with Megadeth, and does not want to burn bridges.
The Rebirth-era reunion staged in São Paulo in April 2026 was not a single occasion. On 25 October the same year, at FULL METAL JAPAN 2026 at Pia Arena MM in Kanagawa, ANGRA are to appear with Kiko Loureiro and Edu Falaschi in the line-up — Gekirock describes it as early members returning for this festival only. The day is a double headline with Germany's POWERWOLF, for whom it will be a first ever Japanese show.
What the 2000 split left behind was a pair of guitarists: Kiko Loureiro and Rafael Bittencourt. The band was rebuilt around them, with Eduardo "Edu" Falaschi brought in as the new singer.
Edu Falaschi left the band in May 2012. Blabbermouth's account places it against a background of management problems and accumulated wear on his voice.
Matos last performed six days before he died. On 2 June 2019 he appeared at the Espaço das Américas in São Paulo with SHAMAN, and also guested with that night's headliners, Avantasia. Avantasia's Tobias Sammet wrote that he was devastated by the news about a friend he had shared a stage with only five days earlier.
The band themselves did not expect the double commitment to last. Some four months in, in August 2015, Bittencourt was asked by Revolver whether Kiko would remain an ANGRA member; his answer was that as a brother and friend for life they were proud of him, that he had been pushing towards something bigger from the start, and that he deserved it — it was what hard work earns. BARKS reported the band's own reading at that point: before long the two jobs would not both be possible, and they would be finding another guitarist.
Secret Garden, from 2014, brought in a good deal from outside. Simone Simons of the Dutch symphonic metal band Epica and the German singer Doro Pesch both guested. Maria Ilmoniemi, Kiko Loureiro's Finnish wife, took part in the writing, and the Swedish producer Jens Bogren made the record.
The promotion for Secret Garden included something aimed at listeners in Japan: share a particular post on the band's official Facebook page and your username would be printed, without exception, in the album's colour booklet. BARKS reports it drew a good deal of attention.
One thing Blabbermouth identifies as constant across ANGRA's work is an ability to put heavy metal and elements of Brazilian culture together. Combining power, virtuosity, elaborate arrangement and Brazilian influence, the band has built a musical language of its own.
Rafael Bittencourt's account of how Fabio Lione settled in is that it took time. What began as a temporary arrangement became a permanent membership, but only after they worked out how to get the best of him without ceasing to be ANGRA. One pull is back toward the original conception; the other makes every experiment sound new. Getting both to work took a while.
Kiko Loureiro's time in Megadeth ran about nine years. In September 2023 he said he would sit out the next leg of the tour to be at home in Finland with his children, and in November announced he was extending that absence — he did not want to hinder the band's plans or the work of everyone involved. He left in the end. Dave Mustaine called him a top-notch professional and a maestro, thanked him for nine years of work, and said he could not have done it without him.