After taking a break (disbanding) for a few years, Angra quickly regrouped realizing the band’s importance as a musical force and started work on what would become "Aqua". Unfortunately the album’s opening instrumental ‘Viderunt te Aquae’ is really useless because it’s so short and maybe if was longer and more dramatic it would have nicely set the tone for ‘Arising Thunder’, but don’t let that discourage you. ‘Arising Thunder’ is classic high energy Angra with bright power metal guitar leads and bouncy drums. ‘Awake From Darkness’ follows combining their Helloween influence within a more progressive framework. I like this one a lot. Fourth one in, ‘Lease of Life’, is one of Angra’s strongest ballads with that classy piano and tender melody.

There are not many musical differences between "Aqua" and the previous two albums ‘Aurora Consurgens’ and ‘Temple Of Shadows’, but noticeably "Aqua" includes none of the modern influence. "Aqua" feels more like a combination of "Rebirth" and "Fireworks", perfect examples: ‘The Rage Of The Waters’ and ‘Hallow’ which has a strong, yet subtle, backing keyboard. The Brazilian, ethnic sounds surface on ‘Spirit In The Air’ and ‘Weakness Of A Man’, and Edu’s vocals shine (like always on such tunes). Epic, theatrical (and dark) piano, along with the stunning female vocal, helps ‘Ashes’ close out the album bold and beautiful.

Angra take it back to their roots on this one and it’s a nice return. After 17 years, 6 studio albums and several E.p.s, its evident they still got it.

Guitarist Rafael Bittencourt had this to say about the album:
"This year we had strong storms that caused floods, landslides and other problems to many Brazilian cities. It seems that the waters are representing a time of change. The upcoming of the Age of Aquarius, the apocalypse, the prophecies about 2012 and other matters were flying around our conversations.

Aqua is the Latin word for water and summarizes the whole idea behind the Shakespearean play and our (Angra) feelings.

The story is about a king named Prospero and his Daughter Miranda who were left exiled on an island that was supposed to be a wasteland and they built a life together with the magic creatures of that very enchanted place. Prospero plans revenge against his betraying opponents and raises, by means of magic, a huge storm upon the ship that carries them. He finally forgives the evil acts of his enemies when he realizes that those acts haven't harmed him like they were intended to. So, the water is representing the coming of Prospero's maturity and all the transformations and cycles that led him to that point. We were also going through a lot of renovation processes and we wanted to express the idea of being renewed. Letting go of bad feelings and thoughts is a common theme between this Shakespeare's text and Aqua. The Tempest helped us to describe more clearly our emotions at this moment."