Apocalypse

Apocalypse is a Brazilian band formed in 1983, and spent their first several years as a regional band playing festivals and other local venues. The band's first album released in 1990. Apocalypse are a highly talented and accessible band with a long musical history of international touring and recording. While their later compositions consist mostly of rather simple musical constructs, they are quite melodic and very well engineered. The band were forced to look beyond Brazil's borders during a lull in the progressive market in the mid-90s, becoming the first Brazilian band to release on a French label in 1995 ("Perto Do Amanhecer"), and later touring and recording in the United States. The band's lyrics deal mostly with humanistic themes - war, mysticism, nature, and death, but with a melodic instrumental style. Fans and the band themselves suggest similarities to ELP, Rush and Marillion. By 2000 the band had developed a polished sound that bordered on power rock at times, and at times can remind the listener very much of AOR bands like Kansas, Journey, Asia, Uriah Heep and Whitesnake. As with so many South American bands however, the lilting inflections in the guitars and keyboards are uniquely Latin in flavor.