The musical evolution of Sepultura is an almost perfect representation of how Thrash Metal rose in the early to mid 80s, peaked in the late 80s, and faltered and splintered in the early 90s. Sepultura began as a project by teenagers from the burgeoning Metal scene in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, which tried to push Thrash Metal to the peak of its intensity, with the bands debut EP Bestial Devastation and the bands first full length LP Morbid Visions. These two releases blended the raw and primitive (emphasis on the primitive) Black Metal riffs and lyrical constructions found on In the Sign of Evil and delivered it with the speed and intensity found on Reign in Blood. These releases, while decent in quality, did little to stand out from other early releases of up and coming acts from fellow acts in the Belo Horizonte scene, such as Sarcofago, Vulcano, and Mutilator.
However, with future releases, the band (with the help of new guitarist, Andreas Kisser) would deviate from the First Wave Black Metal influence found the earlier releases and instead strive toward the more a more Death Metal inspired Thrash sound, not unlike found in the Teutonic Thrash Metal, but with a undoubtedly unique and recognizable approach to Thrash Metal on the bands next three releases. After being signed the band dropped three legendary albums in succession, Schizophrenia, Beneath the Remains, and Arise. These three albums, produced by the legendary Scott Burns, are some of the most consistently intense, pummeling, and riff heavy releases that have been released by any thrash metal band to date. On the 1991 release, Arise the band began to gain some confidence in experimenting with Industrial music, Groove metal, and the tribal music of Brazil, while at the same time keeping the same level of intensity that made Sepultura, Sepultura.
In 1993, Chaos AD dropped and it was clear that Cavalera and co decided to forgo the the seductive tastes of gradualism and embrace a punctuated equilibrium by completely embracing the plodding Groove Metal sound spearheaded by acts like Pantera and Machine Head.
If you forget about all of the previous releases by this band, this album is actually enjoyable. In fact , this is easily one of the better releases of the groove metal genre due to the riff-writing being for stronger than many Groove Metal releases, Max Cavelera is a better vocalist than most Groove monkeys , and the rhyme schemes being absolutely hilarious "Chaos AD/Tanks on the streets!", Pick this album up along with Slaughter in the Vatican by Exhorder, and maybe Coroner's Grin to listen to some quality Groove metal.
Then suddenly in 1996, the band, for a lack of a better phrase, stopped being good. Here we have the massive fart that Cavelara and Co. unleashed upon the world.
The fart is actually pleasant with the opener, Roots Bloody Roots. That is that it sounds like Korn's self titled album (decent) without Jonathan Davis' sexual pervert esque vocal track ruining the entire track (massive plus). Furthermore, Max Cavelera can actually sell these ridiculous lyrics "I/Believe in Our Fate/We Don't Need to be Fake/It's All We Wanna Be/Watch us Freak!" since he is a competent vocalist and the band has actual balls so it isn't afraid to speed up. Thus the song does not sound and feel like I'm listening to a lethargic mollusk suffering a stroke is manning the guitar like other Groove metal acts.
Let's just take a moment to say that the guitar on this album sounds like a dumpster fire behind a 7/11. It's this muddied mess brought to you by Ross Robinson. The creative mastermind that brough you Vanilla Ice's foray into nu-Metal with Hard to Swallow. Compare this to the production found on Beneath the Remains or Arise. Now that's a heavy raw guitar sound not this worthless attempt at a heavy guitar because Machine Head and Pantera are oh so heavy with their watered down Black Album reject riffs.
The second song is Attitude. No it's not Glen Danzig's ode to spousal abuse, it's Max Cavalera's ode to… something. It's not all bad, there is an interesting first minute of an industrial and indigenous hybrid that serves as aa solid build up to an extremely boring groove metal track. There's a semi enjoyable riff that pop in around the two minute mark and comes in to try to revive this dying song, but the verses are a complete dead weight. Then Max Cavaleras embarrasses himself at the two at a half minute mark by hacking the backing track drop at the the 2 30 minute mark. It almost sounds like a prank by the producer.
Then we have this boring intro, and we have this decent intro riff and- Oh!, oooohhhh, oh deary me, Max Cavalera rapping? Is, is it too late to switch back to listening to Arise? Not only is it bad, but it's a rip off of an absolutely horrendous Slayer song, Love to Hate from the turd in Slayer's nearly impeccable punchbowl of a discography, Diabolous in Musica. While this track does not suddenly transform you into a complete toolbag wearing an orange and yellow flame shirt and black mesh short combo like Love To Hate does, you will still wake up feeling like a useless whore when you wake up the next day.
While the sound of turtle procreation would be an improvement over the previous song, Ratamahatta is actually pretty good. I love the juxtaposition of the new version of Sepultura with some tribal instruments and the insane vocal performance from Carlinhos Brown. It's a absolutely fun performance and keeps this project alive for the first half of the album.
Next track is Breed Apart, oh boy, here's the drums to build up to something interesting no doubt? Oh wait this is Roots, it builds up to a boring riff. Seriously, this will describe half of the songs from this album. This album is the equivalent of auditory blue balls.
Just a not the quality of these songs drop like a cliff with these next few songs starting with Straighthate.
Here we have half ass build up to some more semi-rapping with Max Cavalara. The guitar is completely non-existent where it serves as the equivalent of record scratching. Plus we have Max Cavalara sounding like he's yelling into his phone with a bad connection. Fuck this song.
Spit is shit. It turns Max Cavalera's vocals up to eleven and drowns out all of the non-existent riffs. The riff in this song sounds like if early Mastodon recorded all of their guitars with a children's toy microphone and then proceeded to playback that recording inside of a microwave while it was turned on.
Then we have Lookaway. For the love of all that is holy, what is this shit? I could not believe this was a real song. I have listened to early 20th century French Avant Garde composures who have made more coherent compositions than this. Here we have a collaboration with Korn's DJ Lethel, Jonathan Davis, and Faith No More's own sexual pervert, Mike Patton. It's unfortunate that the Earth did not open up beneath the recording studio that day and take everybody with them into a flaming pit of human misery and suffering.
I cannot stress how much this song annoys me to my very core. This is like the worst of Akira Yamaoka combined with the sounds of Karl Sanders masturbating on a piece he deemed to pretentious. This is like Celtic Frost Danse Macabre if you handed it to a group of self indulgent child molesters who wanted to make dancing skeleton music. This is what happens when Mistress leaves her three gimps to do their own free will with an open mic, a drum kit, and a turntable. The absolute low note of a lowly piece of filth of an album.
Dusted would be so unnoticeable except we have a guest appearance by the snare drums from St. Anger in the break of the song.
Born Stubbon is more of the same as Dusted except it's live so it brings just a tiny amount more life into it to the point where it sounds like a b side to a shitty song from Chaos AD.
For the next two tracks, Jasco and Itsari, the band decides to take a bathroom break and allowed the Xavante Tribe of Brazil into the studio to fill in. These songs are definitely among the highest points of this album. You can feel the genuine passion, the rawness, and roots (!) of these people. Not in shit like Lookaway or Straighthate, or the garbage they recorded with Derrick Green after this album.This is what angers me because there is so much potential hidden here to make a more cohesive statement with this album because instead of letting Jonathan Davis and Phil Anselmo jerk off all over you you have fantastic unique songs like these two tracks and Ratamahatta to carve out your own musical destiny, Instead with the next few tracks we have more of the same.
Ambush has this interesting riff in the into. Maybe this album will finally turnaround- NOPE! More grooveshit with a decent ambient bridge.
Endangered Species is Dusted v.3 in the sense that it barely exists. The only thing notable is there is a Kerry King inspired solo in the middle. The first guitar solo since Roots bloody Roots which was forty five minutes ago. To cap off this turd is Dictatorshit. Genius title guys. It's a decent Hardcore Punk ditty. Not exactly the best way to cap off a Nu Groove Indigenous Wank Fest, but then again how are you supposed to end an album like this- oh, umm hi hidden track? There's this hidden track called Canyon Jam which is more indigenous music. It's pretty good actually with the ambient meshing well with all of the hypnotic percussion.
This album is bad. The good moments are too far apart and too few to save this. It's unfortunate because you can salvage pieces of this album to make a more cohesive statement rather than being drowned in the over roided juices of Phil Anselmo and Jonathan Davis.
Sepultura has never recovered since releasing this album. Max Cavalera would leave shortly after this albums release due to disputes with guitarist Andes Kisser. Derrick Green would take up vocal reigns, and together they would release what I would call, Roots: the Next Generations. For all the hate, Green gets he is not at all a bad vocalist, but much like an actor or actress, he is only as good as the material he is presented with. If you enjoy Roots, you may enjoy some of Sepultura later albums, but they lack a lot of the indigenous elements that keep this album. However, this is not for me
4/10
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