ALMAH- Marcelo Barbosa
\r\nMetalzone: Hello and welcome to Metalzone. Your brand new album, “Motion”, has been released about a month ago. Tell us a few things about this new endeavor of yours.
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: I think that now, three years after our last record we are more mature as musicians and also as a team. We know each other better so everything was faster than the last time. We worked in the pre-production thru emails and hung up for one week before getting into the studio. In this week we arranged every song and the results were impressive. Like I said, as we know each other better we knew what to expect from each one about music, playing and song writing. The whole process was smooth, easy and really fast.
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\r\nMetalzone: As far as I am concerned Almah begun as a solo project, featuring Angra’s singer Edu Falaschi. Five years after the band was formed, it has released 2 studio albums; so, can we say that Almah is now a “full time” band?
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: Yes you’re right. It began as a solo project but even before the second album it became a band. I’m with Edu and Felipe since that time when we were touring promoting the first album and sometime after that Moreira and Paulo joined the band. During the Fragile Equality process we firmed this line up and as time goes by we feel more comfortable as a team, as a group. For now we all are a hundred percent focused in Almah and in the promotion of MOTION that is in my opinion our best work.
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\r\nMetalzone: From my perspective, your music is a combination of heavy/power metal and progressive power metal and “melody” is the key word in this “mixture”. How would you describe your music?
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: You did it well. I would say that Almah’s music is based on the triad: power, technique and melody. Me and Felipe are really into progressive music, Paulo is fully into death/trash and Edu is a great songwriter who always comes up with catchy melodies. We are pretty eclectic but metal is the common line between us. So, these three elements are in every song we write and it became something like a trademark.
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\r\nMetalzone: What’s your personal favorite song from the album and which one was the most difficult for you?
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: This question is always difficult to answer. I always say that it’s something dynamic and is always changing depending on my mood. I really like Living and Drifting but today, I would say Days of the new is my favorite. I think the most difficult should be Daydream Lucidity. It has some intricated parts and the harmony during the solos changes almost in every chord. It’s something really cerebral and beautiful at the same time.
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\r\nMetalzone: Having two Angra members in the line-up implies things in common for the two bands, especially on the vocals field.
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: To me Fragile Equality has some Angra mood in certain way. Not the whole album, of course, but some parts. However, MOTION is really different. Edu sang on this album on a lower tessiture, where his voice sounds more natural and he’s more aggressive too, using drives and things like that. The songwriting style of this album is different too. We have two of the same members but using their talent to do something really personal. It wouldn’t have a reason to record another Angra album with only a different name.
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\r\nMetalzone: What do you think about the Power Metal scene nowadays? (including Power Metal -related genres). Do you think that during the last couple of years there has been some sort of “resurrection” of this scene?
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: I don’t know, in Brazil nowadays this scene isn’t too strong. It was better a few years ago but normally this is something cyclic. We have to write and record what we feel and believe is true for us. In my opinion, every artist should do like that. We can’t wait for the scene or the audience to choose our way. It changes a lot and if you start to follow it like a rabbit you will be always behind it.\r\n
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\r\nMetalzone: Which are you top 5 albums for the year 2011 so far?
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: I don’t have time to listen to a lot of new albums. Normally it takes a little while until I figure out what I should listen first. I did like DT’s A Dramatic Turn of Events and Symphony X’s – Iconoclast. In my opinion, even if I weren’t a band member MOTION should be in this list too. But it’s a personal question, so…
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\r\nMetalzone: A video for “Trace of Trait” is already released, so what’s the next step for Almah?
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: We have another video done by now of the song Late Night in 85 which is a ballad. Beside this we are travelling around several cities of Brazil playing live to promote the album.
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\r\nMetalzone: Let’s say that I am not familiar with Almah. Can you give me a few good reasons to check the band out?
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: We have good songs with good melodies. I think this is the main reason. Everything that came after that isn’t important if the songs aren’t good. Nowadays we know a lot of bands with a great production, great musicians but doing bad music. Everything should start from the songs. from the songwriting process. If it doesn’t work “nude”, without a great band playing it, or a great production it will never be a great work.
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\r\nMetalzone: Thank you very much for the interview and good luck with your upcoming plans. Would you like to give a message to Metalzone readers?
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\r\nMarcelo Barbosa: Thank you very much for this space; I’m always glad have the chance to talk about music. Hope you enjoy our new album and see you soon.
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\r\nInterview by Nicoleta Sarantou\r\n
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