Kiko Loureiro
Full Blast

Once I decided to dedicate a review to this great guitarist, I asked myself more than once where to begin... a legitimate point of doubt and indecision that could have caught anyone, leaving them groping in the dark for not too short a time, wondering what would be the right topic to start with.

The guitarist from São Paulo has indeed spent his more than decade-long career with the Brazilian power metal band Angra, letting his creativity and persona stagnate in a vicious circle of clichés. The collective imagination of South American combo fans or those who simply had the chance to know them would never even remotely think that Kiko would produce, after Angra's dark and sinister "Aurora Consurgens," a jazz/rock and Latin music gem as refined and colorful as "Universo inverso." The same fans had already widened their eyes a year earlier listening to a rock metal instrumental work as complex and articulated, airy and full of touches of class like "No gravity." It was evident and clear then that Kiko has a talent for music, he is a great guitarist; a wizard of tapping and sweep picking, always a fast and clean soloist, but the moment he is not just one of many is when he works solo.

The right argument from which to start, I think, is precisely this: highlighting the skills of a musician partly hidden and watered-down for many years, which emerge more completely and "uninhibited" only with the listening of these freer and more spontaneous solo works. "Full blast," the latest effort of the small great wizard of the six strings, clearly retraces the footsteps of "No gravity," broadly reprising the same sound, one might say a true continuation of what was already experimented in it; thus, we find excellent orchestration work and guitar overlays, dynamic and angry rhythms that mesh with decidedly Latin tempos, increasingly fading towards the sounds of Kiko’s homeland until delivering delicate and dreamy interludes in "Desperado" and "Headstrong." The speed-power "Cuttin edge" takes your breath away from the first to the last note, the South American sounds leave us to make way for neoclassical references and that "rhetoric" typical of Angra that set the standard in metal made in the USA. Even more rhetorical is the big ballad "Excuse me" and to whet our appetite again, we must wait for the fun "Se Entrega Corisco"; among the best tracks on the album, we find the beautiful "Clirvoyance," where he finally forgoes technicalities and speed to give his music more romantic tones, his guitar plucks a few meaningful notes, catapulting the listener into a gentle and ethereal dream.

Throughout the 54 minutes that compose the album, we move from aggressive metal to melodic rock. Kiko loves his land and culture, he doesn't hide it and shows it openly; perhaps "Full blast" reaches the highest levels when Loureiro’s homeland makes itself heard with its rhythms, colors, and melodies, as in the short and irresistible "Mundo verde" performed by classical guitars and percussion, or the metallic and captivating "Corrosive voices." Loureiro expresses himself once again in total freedom, and "Full blast" manages to be loved right away thanks to the inspiration and experience of a musician to be rediscovered. If you haven't yet had the chance to listen to him as a solo artist, "Full blast" is a good excuse to do so. Enjoy the music.