Veloso continues to show his pre-eminence as a singer and songwriter with Noites Do Norte. He may be almost 60, but he's far from set in his ways, still chipping away at lyrical and musical boundaries. But where he looked outward many years ago, getting inspiration from the rock music of Britain and America, these days he looks inside, at Brazil, making songs like his version of Jorge Ben's "Zumbi" a cinematic journey across Brazil. The title track delves back into history, its words taken directly from the writing of 19th century abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco. Inevitably, samba and bossa nova remain the musical touchstones, but they're also the jumping-off point for experimentation, such as the hip-hop drumming (up front in the mix) on the opener, "Zera a Reza," or "13 De Maio," where son Moreno Veloso offers his own idiosyncratic approach to the playing and engineering. "Ia" uses electric guitar and drums to make a swirling soundscape that's almost modern psychedelia behind Veloso's instantly recognizable voice. Never content to tread ground he's already covered, Veloso continues to go off the map.

(by Chris Nickson, All Music Guide)

Nearly 35 years after the advent of tropicalia, the Brazilian movement that fused native music and visuals with Anglo/psychedelic flavors, singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso continues his deep, playful experimentation. Noites do Norte ("Northern Nights") is a striking art-pop fusion whose intellectualism is often bound up with the beauty of its layered tones. Concerns from the country's national identity and ongoing racial crises--a theme that fed Veloso's 2000 soundtrack to Orfeu, an update of the Black Orpheus story--to early memories, broken hearts, and the artist's adoration of filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni swim through a colorful aural canvas. But for all of Veloso's trademark verbal surprises (for one, the Antonioni tribute is sung in Italian), it's easy to believe his claim that initially "I did not think about the songs. I went to the studio looking for sounds." Whether juxtaposing a Milesian trumpet with lush reeds and strings ("Sou Seu Sabiá"), deploying screeching rock guitar ("Rock 'n' Raul," "Ia") and machine noises ("Cantiga de Boi") in the midst of acoustic sound, or contrasting a troupe of drummers with baroque strings over the discrete movements of the three-minute title track, Veloso fills the disc with so much music that it seems to suspend or expand the listener's sense of time: a rare trick from a rare trickster.

(by Rickey Wright, amazon.com )