Angra
Hunters And Prey

THE REVIEW

An appreciable trend of this Carioca group has been to present, throughout their career, some EPs that, in themselves, have never had any particular quality other than reconfirming the music already presented by the previous album.
So it is for this mini album "Hunters And Prey", distributed in 2002 (one year after the release of Rebirth), which in itself does not contain major stylistic innovations. Or rather, compared to Rebirth.

The record, in fact, to be well appreciated, must be seen not as a kind of spin-off of its preceding full-length (an approach more suited to Freedom Call, which already from the cover recalled its "parent" Holy Land), but rather it must be inserted into the complete discographic context of Angra.

This EP, despite not presenting any memorable songs (except for the eponymous song of the album, which excellently recalls the typical style of the much-loved album Holy Land and two acoustic covers of the two singles from the previous album Rebirth - a whole different thing compared to the musically pathetic versions recently visible on YouTube that are, in my opinion, unlistenable) is listenable, not boring and is, in my opinion, a right stylistic proposal that helps the listener (especially fans) to settle into the new Angra universe.

An EP that, therefore, could even be proposed before listening to the album "Rebirth", so as not to shock those who, after Fireworks, expected the usual Angra filled with Brazil, and are not yet ready to take a blow of pure "Europeanized" power as offered by "Nova Era".

A flaw, in the tracklist, I find in the proposal of "Caca e Cacador". Besides the somewhat obsolete title for the Hispanic-Italian populations, repeating the same song (in addition to being the "strongest" one on the record) after a few tracks seems forced and perhaps boring. In my opinion, they could have easily eliminated one of the two versions (why not, maybe even the English one, as no one would die if there wasn't an eponymous song in the record).

The score of 3, therefore, is justified only by the fact that in itself it is not an indispensable and distinguishable album from the rest of the group's discography, but it remains a nice piece of work to which, if you really have nothing better to listen to, or at least want to try to find something good in the new Angra, you have 8 extra tracks/possibilities to reconsider, or even to reconfirm your disdain.

All in all, a good mini-album.