Pretobras

Pretobras is a highly enjoyable, rich, and diverse album that contains several songs where Itamar Assumpção is at his absolute best. Without forced eclectics, Assumpção jumps from the smooth reggae of "Já que tem que," to the singer/songwriter styled "Vida de Artista," to the samba "Vou de vai-vai," to the elegant electronic minimalism of "Pöltingen," and to the funny, intentionally absurd lyrics of "Abobrinhas não." In between, the listener finds several musically and lyrically intriguing songs that are very hard to define in terms of which genre they belong to. The production of the album is very well balanced and fresh-sounding, and the electronic elements are never exaggerated. The only drawback of Pretobras is its lengthy playing time (69 minutes) as a few of the 21 songs feel somewhat superfluous, not reaching the same class as the rest. Much more sadly though, Pretobras was to be the last album that Itamar Assumpção recorded before his premature death. Judging by the high quality and vibrant energy of this album, Assumpção still had much more music in him when he died. ~ Philip Jandovský, Rovi