The album peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's World Albums chart.[4] It was nominated for a Grammy Award, in the "Best World Music Album" category.[5] Nascimento promoted the album by opening the 1994 JVC Jazz Festival.[6]
The Philadelphia Inquirer called the album "a collection of carnival songs, jazz explorations and outright pop ... that celebrates Nascimento as one of the world's vocal treasures while demonstrating his versatility."[17]The Baltimore Sun wrote: "Blessed with lithe, flowing melodies and rich, jazz-tinged arrangements, its lush lyricism hearkens back to Nascimento's great albums of the '70s."[18]
The Milwaukee Sentinel determined that "Nascimento is the mourning dove of Brazilian singers, and he often lapses into keening chants that seem to bespeak of loves lost or funerals attended."[19]The New York Times opined: "Characteristically for Mr. Nascimento's work, Angelus vacillates between kitsch and the sublime and is aimed at fans of both."[20] The Chicago Sun-Times concluded that "the songwriter's homage to the Beatles, a somber and jazzy take on 'Hello Goodbye', boasts an economical string arrangement that would make George Martin proud."[16]
AllMusic wrote that "the state of Nascimento's songwriting imagination remains in a moderate slump, made glaringly evident by the inclusion of so much superior early music."[15]
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