The Jung Ones

Managed to get my grubby paws on the new Angra album 'Aurora Consurgens' today. Musically, it's pretty much as you'd expect, though there's a distinctly heavier edge to the tracks that's strongly reminiscent of Maiden.

The worst part of this job is that you become a cynical old bastard after a while, and it's the blurb on the inner sleeve that made me twitchy. For example, how's this for pure Spinal Tap?

"Aurora Consurgens is also the title of an old book written by Saint Thomas Of Aquin. Such book was used by Jung to establish the relations between dreams and different mental conditions"

Ah, you see. They're all clever lads in Angra. I can just see them all, perched around the studio in Sao Paulo discussing and dissecting the minutiae of Jung's theory on the collective unconscious and hero archetypes. Beats talking about lager, gigs and groupies. But hey, come on, at least they're original. And the highly innovative subject matter? Cough . . .

"It is not a concept album. However all lyrics do have a common theme: the various mental issues including suicidal tendencies, schizophrenia, manic depression, sociopathy etc"

Blimey. Once upon a time that would be called plagiarism. Now where did I leave my copy of Dream Theater's "Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence"?