Iuri Sanson

Iuri Sanson — born in Brazil in 1979 — was Hibria's vocalist between 1996 and 2017, and one of the most recognisable voices in Brazilian metal. His register is what defines the band's sound. Sanson sings in an extreme high range, with a power and sustain that place him in the school of 1980s traditional heavy metal — Rob Halford, Geoff Tate — rather than in the falsetto of European power metal. That is a real technical distinction: it is chest voice pushed to its upper limit, not head voice, and it demands far greater support and stamina. He is on the records that made Hibria's reputation outside Brazil: Defying the Rules (2004), The Skull Collectors (2008), Blind Ride (2011) and Silent Revenge (2013), works that took a band from Porto Alegre on tours in Europe and Japan without major-label backing. His departure in 2017, after twenty-one years, was the most significant break in the group's history — Hibria carried on with Abel Camargo as the only link to the original line-up.