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LAMPIÃO REI is the second studio album by the Brazilian progressive rock / avant-garde metal band Papangu.
Recorded by 3x Latin Grammy-winning engineer Fernando Sanches and mixed by Berlin-based producer Richard Behrens (Elder, Kadavar), Lampião Rei continues Papangu's series of albums on the Cangaço movement that began with Holoceno, the band's critically acclaimed 2021 debut.
While Holoceno is a Faustian allegory of environmental destruction, Lampião Rei instead presents an epic, biographical narrative of magical realism, recounting the trials and tribulations of Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, a.k.a. Lampião (1898 – 1938), the legendary bandit leader of the Brazilian Northeast, from his birth until his rise as the most fearful man in Brazil. The rest of the story—Lampião's downfall and the infamous beheading of his whole crew in 1938—will be continued in a future recording.
The idea to retell Lampião's life has been latent since the band's conception back in 2012—with "Oferenda no Alguidar" being built around the band's very first riff—, but Papangu decided to keep it on the back burner for a good reason. The post-2013 Brazilian zeitgeist, marked by the far right's half-successful attempt to push the country into self-destruction, led the band to focus on Holoceno's apocalyptic tale instead.
Lampião Rei is a bittersweet story, filled with hope, religious syncretism, and malice, and the João Pessoa ensemble intentionally avoids repeating Holoceno's formula in its execution. While there's plenty of heaviness in this sophomore release—with "Boitatá" sounding like a Goetic grimoire growled out loud in the back of a moving garbage truck—, here one can also hear baião, MPB, synth-wizard proggery, maracatu, and shamelessly optimistic chord progressions.
Now functioning as a sextet, with improv-trained brothers Rodolfo and Pedro steering the songs into jazz-rock territory, and new drummer Vitor—having worked both as a forró percussionist and as a beat-keeper in death metal bands—grounding everything down with brute force and class, Papangu showcases their second album with aplomb. Unlike the half-studio, half-bedroom recording process of Holoceno, most of Lampião Rei was recorded live in the studio as first takes.
The result is Papangu's own brand of cinematic, metallic zeuhl taken to a rolling boil, showing not only the high-octane intensity that brought them comparisons to King Crimson and Magma, but also proudly displaying their Brazilian heritage, with influences ranging from Hermeto Pascoal and Edu Lobo to Sepultura.