They say that utopia is an illusion. They say anything that perfect and precise just has to be a dream. I also believed them till a very dear friend of mine told me about this new brazillian band, Hibria. For those who are oblivious to this name, allow me to give you a picture of when you would expect from them. Try to close your eyes for a second and imagine a hypothetical band with Ronnie james Dio on the vocals, Steve Harris on the bass, Paul Gilbert ;), and Glen Tipton( Judas Priest ) handling the shredding and Scott Travis behind the kit……. I know ….. sounds too good to be true, but trust me, hibria’s music is a very close approximation to what this godly cocktail would have produced.

Strangely, unlike other power metal bands, Hibria go without keys. This was strangely dissapointing at first, but soon after the first spin i was hooked. The album Defying the Rules is a mixture of power, aggression, melody, and all in all mosh!!!! Very fast paced songs, beautiful guitar-ring, incredible bass work, n vocals that tend to shatter the roof and touch the sky .. The fist song steel lord on wheels was at a point of time the most played song in my i pod. Starting off with a metallish feel, this song imbibes powerful rhythm, astonishing vocals and most of all very beautifully arpeggiated phrases that are very classically influenced. The choruses to most of the tracks are so catchy that a friend of mine fucked up a lab by singing millenium quest louder than what the instructor could allow. Kingdom to share is the only song done in 6/8, but its done to perfection. Living Under Ice starts off with a very ‘in flames’ kind of a riff but breaks up to the same bad ass power metal of hibria. The title track defying the rules, according to me, has most challenging guitar work. Its incredible how Abel Camargo and Diego Kasper play complex sequences at such a high tempo.

All in all i am certain hibria is the new face of power metal of the future. Defying many rules of metal music, hibria have a distinct sound that is far from the usual monotonicity of some of the big power metal bands today. They also certainly live up to their definition of heavy metal “An energy blast resulted by the union of people”.