ANDRÉ MATOS Says ANGRA Should Call It Quits Following Split With EDU FALASCHI

Brazilian vocalist, keyboard player and composer André Matos (ANGRA, SHAMAN, VIPER) was recently interviewed by the Brazilian radio show "Heavy Nation" (web site),which airs on Radio UOL. Matos was promoting the tour in support of his third solo record, "The Turn Of The Lights", which included a performance of ANGRA's entire "Angels Cry" album, released exactly 20 years ago.

"Angels Cry" was Matos' first album with ANGRA, which had just formed a few months earlier. The vocalist, despite his young age, had already recorded two successful LPs with the band VIPER and studied classical piano, composition and conducting.

Besides recording vocals and keyboards for all tracks on "Angels Cry", Matos was the writer and arranger of nine out of ten tracks on the album, including "Carry On", which became a worldwide heavy metal hit. With its cutting-edge combination of power and progressive metal, classical music rhythm and elements, "Angels Cry" became a huge international success and established ANGRA as one of the top power metal bands of the 1990s.

Matos left ANGRA in 2000 and was replaced by Eduardo "Edu" Falaschi, who appeared on the band's last four studio albums — 2001's "Rebirth", 2004's "Temple Of Shadows", 2006's "Aurora Consurgens" and 2010's "Aqua". Falaschi quit ANGRA in May 2012, explaining in a statement that "there comes a moment in a man's life when it is necessary to make a radical decision in order to move forward with dignity and renewed energy."

Asked who should replace Falaschi in ANGRA, Matos told "Heavy Nation": "ANGRA should call it a day. They already tried a resurrection with Edu Falaschi, which had some success. But they're always living in the past...

"Insisting on rebuilding the band is worthless. That's why so many times I chose to end a project rather than trying to bring back to life a mummy, a corpse."

Matos confirmed that he was invited to rejoin ANGRA after Falaschi's departure, but he explained that the friendship between the members of the classic lineup of ANGRA ended after they went their separate ways and he said that he wouldn't feel comfortable going back to the band, as he recently did with VIPER.

"I won't be a hypocrite," Matos said. "They came to me, the members of [ANGRA] and some people from their management. But I've always made things clear: I'm not interested in this kind of reunion, which I'd call morbid. It's gone, it's dead. With VIPER, things were different; we kept the friendship even when I left the band."

Matos rejoined VIPER for a Brazilian tour in 2012. Several of the shows were recorded for a DVD, due later in 2013.

Matos' solo tour kicked off on March 22 in Sorocaba and included stops in Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre. He will next perform at this year's Abril Pro Rock festival on April 19-20 at Chevrolet Hall in Recife, Brazil.