{"id":29923,"date":"2026-09-07T15:44:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T15:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alliedforces.eu\/?p=29923"},"modified":"2026-09-07T15:45:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T15:45:04","slug":"song-of-the-day-metal-icarus-by-angra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alliedforces.eu\/en\/song-of-the-day-metal-icarus-by-angra\/","title":{"rendered":"Song of the day: \u201cMetal Icarus\u201d by Angra"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a time when Angra seemed almost incapable of writing a song without throwing another handful of ideas into the mix, and \u201cMetal Icarus\u201d<\/strong> is perhaps one of the finest examples of that particular virtue. Taken from 1998’s Fireworks<\/em>, the song sits at an interesting point in the band’s history, following the enormous ambition of Holy Land<\/em> while taking a slightly more direct approach to their music. It may not have the Brazilian influences or progressive ambition of its predecessor, but it certainly retains the qualities that made Angra so exciting: speed, melody, classical arrangements and, above all, two guitarists who clearly had no intention of wasting a single second of playing time. Kiko Loureiro<\/strong> and Rafael Bittencourt<\/strong> weave their guitars around each other throughout the song, moving effortlessly between harmonised melodies, razor-sharp riffs and the sort of solos that made late-nineties power metal such a wonderful playground for guitar players. The impressive thing is that none of this feels like technicality for its own sake. The song remains remarkably coherent despite everything happening inside it, with Andr\u00e9 Matos<\/strong> providing the melodic centre while Lu\u00eds Mariutti<\/strong> and Ricardo Confessori<\/strong> keep the whole machine moving underneath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1998, this kind of musicianship was hardly unusual in itself. The decade had inherited the guitar heroes of the eighties, while bands such as Helloween, Gamma Ray, Stratovarius<\/strong> and Blind Guardian<\/strong> had helped establish a new generation of European power metal in which speed, melody and virtuosity were once again perfectly acceptable ingredients. What made Angra different was the way they absorbed those influences without simply becoming another European power metal band. Angels Cry<\/em> had already announced their technical credentials, while Holy Land<\/em> had demonstrated that their Brazilian identity could become an essential part of the music rather than a decorative afterthought. Fireworks<\/em> was more streamlined, but songs such as \u201cMetal Icarus\u201d showed that the band had not suddenly forgotten how to make their instruments sound enormous. There is something wonderfully characteristic about hearing Loureiro and Bittencourt trading ideas while Matos soars above them: it is unmistakably Angra, but it also belongs to that wonderfully excessive period when bands still believed that a song could be melodic, progressive, technically demanding and completely over the top without having to apologise for any of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title is also an unusually appropriate one. The myth of Icarus has always been about ambition, about refusing to accept the limits imposed upon you and discovering how far you can go before the consequences arrive. Heavy metal has never exactly been short of characters with that particular attitude, but it feels especially fitting for a Brazilian band that had spent the first half of the nineties proving that they could stand alongside the giants of the European scene. Angra had already achieved something remarkable simply by reaching that position, and \u201cMetal Icarus\u201d sounds like a band enjoying the view from above rather than worrying about the possibility of falling. There is an almost infectious optimism in the song, even when the guitars become increasingly elaborate, and that is perhaps what makes it so enjoyable today. It does not sound like musicians trying to demonstrate that they are better than everybody else; it sounds like musicians who have discovered what they are capable of and are having an enormous amount of fun finding out how far they can push it. That distinction is important, particularly when revisiting a period in which technical ability could sometimes become an end in itself. Angra understood that a spectacular solo means very little if you cannot remember the song afterwards. \u201cMetal Icarus\u201d gives you both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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