ALMAH was initially established in 2006 as a project of ANGRA's singer Edu Falaschi. With Angra Edu released 3 important albums and composed many hits like Nova Era, Heroes Of Sand, The Course Of Nature, Spread Your Fire, Bleeding Heart; this renowned Brazilian prog-power band has already sold over 1 million cds during 15-year career. No wonder that Edu's new band ALMAH achieved big success worldwide very fast.
Since 2006 ALMAH has released two albums worldwide, has turned from a solo-project into a regular band with excellent musicians, and has won its own important place on the world metal scene. Edu Falaschi's mate from Angra Felipe Andreoli also joined the band in 2007 and they work in ALMAH simultaneously with Angra. ALMAH is currently working on the third studio album.
The first self-titled ALMAH album was released in the second half of 2006 (Japan/Victor-JVC and Brazil/Laser Company) / in March 2007 (Europe/AFM Records). Besides singing Edu Falaschi also produced the record, composed all the songs and wrote all the lyrics. He recorded acoustic guitars and keyboards and created all the arrangements for every instrument, including orchestrations.
Edu Falaschi: I was searching for a name – easy name to remember and to pronounce in all languages and I find out that Almah with «h» in Hebrew means virginity and purity but at the same time I find out in the bible many religious people say that it means the opposite, it means malice and perversion. Then I fought – ok two opposite meanings it's very interesting and I can use this idea to make lyrics – I decided to talk about human feelings in a whole album - and human feelings can be good and bad – like liberty, like love or we can feel something like freedom, we can feel envy and greed – bad feelings. That's how I means soul and the soul in Spanish is soul as well, and I am always finding different meanings of this word – always good meanings.
The album was recorded in Finland and Brazil with the following musicians: Emppu Vuorinen (guitars – Nightwish), Lauri Porra (bass – Stratovarius) and Casey Grillo (drums – Kamelot) and special guest appearances: Mike Stone (guitars – Queensrÿche), Edu Ardanuy (guitars – Dr. Sin) and Sizão Machado (bass – Tom Jobim, Chico Buarque and others) among others. The debut album got excellent reviews in many important rock magazines and websites worldwide. Almah was recognized as one of the most important power-metal bands, and Edu Falaschi was called one of the best singers by Burrn! magazine readers (Japan).
The second album “Fragile Equality” was released on September 24th in Asia/Brazil by JVC and Laser Company Records and on October 17th in Europe/USA/Canada by AFM Records. As far as in June 2007 due to some reasons ANGRA took a break almost for two years, Edu was able to concentrate on ALMAH. The solo project month by month was turning into a real band with stable line-up.
Besides Edu, who is, of course, handling the vocals, his ANGRA's mate Felipe Andreoli on bass has participated in ALMAH since their very beginning as a regular band. The Berklee-graduated guitar wizard Marcelo Barbosa (Khallice) joined the band right before its first tour in August 2007. During pre-production stage of “Fragile Equality” the drummer Marcelo Moreira (Burning In Hell) and the second guitarist Paulo Schroeber entered ALMAH. All the members contributed actively to the songwriting process of “Fragile Equality”, with Edu Falaschi and Felipe Andreoli being responsible for the production as well. CD was recorded in Norcal Studios (São Paolo) in the summer 2008. Thus, the second ALMAH record “Fragile Equality” was a real display of the first class musicianship, of the highest level of the compositions and the voice of Edu Falaschi. The lyrical concept of the album is about "the balance between all the elements of the universe" based on a book that Edu is the co-writer for. The book "Fragile Equality - Equinox-Book 1" (done in Manga style) is to be released sometime later, with a karaoke CD of the “Fragile Equality” album.
In Brazil the first press of the album was sold out during the first day of official sales. According to the magazine Roadie Crew the album became one of the best selling albums in Brazil. ALMAH and “Fragile Equality” were recognized by the readers of Roadie Crew magazine (Brazil), by the contributors of the website Whiplash (Brazil) and the website Rock Undeground (Brazil) as THE BEST BRAZILIAN BAND 2008, THE BEST ALBUM 2008, THE BEST ARTWORK 2008 among other nominations awarded to Almah musicians.
“Fragile Equality” in mass media: Metal Temple website (Greece) 4.5/5 (excellent), Novo Metal website (Brazil) 9.0/10, Lords Of Metal website (Holland) 80/100, Rock Eyez website 4.5/5, Pavillon 666 website (France) 9/10, Whiplash (Brazil) 9/10 among many other reviews.
The Fragile Equality tour started in São Paulo in November 2008 and finished in April 2009 in Rio de Janeiro. In July and August 2008 ALMAH played on the main stage of musical festivals PÍAUI POP and PORÃO DO ROCK.
In January 2009 Almah launched the new video clip Beyond Tomorrow. It was filmed in December 2008 in the capital of Brazil – Brasília by Rodrigo Gianetto who works also for MTV Brazil.
The band has its own fan clubs all around the world, in Europe, Japan, Russia and, of course, Brazil.
In March 2009 the band released its first Internet single All I Am (with acoustic version of this song) through its Brazilian Equality Fan Club.
Angra returned to the high activities in March 2009 but Almah announced the start of composing songs for the follower of “Fragile Equality” which is to be released in 2010.
