Metal Reviews

It's on YouTube. Max actually looks sillier without dreads.

Arise is most definitely a classic in my mind.

It is my favourite Sepultura album followed by Beneath The Remains which is almost just as good.

With Arise there is just something about it that really grabs me.
Interestingly enough I find that "something" in a lot of albums that came out in the same year (1991) from a ton of bands (Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Overkill, Iced Earth, Pestilence, Atheist, Malevolent Creation, Entombed etc).

Good times indeed!

On another note I'm surprised Schizophrenia is so well regarded - it seemed so unoriginal to me down to the point where there are riffs that sound identical to Slayer's Necrophiliac from Hell Awaits.

Although it was Chaos A.D. that got me into Sepultura, my favourite album will always be Arise. While Beneath The Remains was good, Arise for me was just so much better.

Its a shame that they have gone so far down hill in recent years. I love both Chaos A.D. and Roots (despite what most people think of that album, it kicks ass), and I even liked Against, Nation and parts of Roorback.

Anything after that, however, blows and blows hard except for maybe a few songs here and there.

Oh well, we'll always have Desperate Cry, Arise, Altered State and Dead Embryonic Cells to remember

Interesting viewpoint there, liking Against but none of Dante or A-Lex, which as flawed as they are, are much Thrashier and have better songwriting than the earlier post-Max stuff. Roorback especially drags in a way that A-Lex doesn't.

I agree that Roots is a great album, though. I prefer it to Chaos AD - much more varied and interesting album overall.

There's a few tracks from Dante and A-Lex which are OK, but are nowhere near the caliber of the older stuff. Against has some great tracks including Choke, Old Earth, Against, Floaters In Mud, Hatred Aside and the tracks were still similar to those before it with Roots and Chaos.

After that, Nation and Roorback had a different sound, in which both have some very good tracks. The band had settled with Derrick Green and the song-writing had changed...again.

Nowdays, Sepultura's average track length is about 3 minutes if that. The songs just doesnt have the same kick anymore. The band is a shadow of its former self and I'm surprised that Derrick Green is still persisting with it...

Not the same kick anymore? I certainly disagree with that, the likes of Moloko Mesto and Dark Wood Of Error have plenty of kick. I suppose it comes down to personal choice - I like the Hardcore direction that they've been slowly moving towards, and whilst I do like Roots, I can see why they want to move away from it. Ludvig Van and Sadistic Values from their latest album are well above this 3 minute limit you claim - obviously, without the Cavalera bros Sepultura will always be a shadow of its former self.

Don't forget I said the AVERAGE time length. Obviously there are some tracks which are well over minutes, but its rare these days.

Whilst I do like Moloko Mesto, We've Lost You and a small handful of others on A-Lex, and songs like Dark Wood of Error, Convicted in Life and a couple more from Dante XXI; if someone came to me and said I could only hear one song of Sepultura and it was between Moloko Mesto and Dead Embryonic Cells, I'm going for DEC without a second thought.

Thats what I'm getting across, the older songs have more depth, more soul, better riffs, better vocals, more creativity. The newer material does not.

Thats just my opinion and whats yours is yours. And yes, without the Cavalera brothers, Sepultura will never be the same.

Hey, you're twisting my words now; obviously Arise is better than A-Lex. What I thought we were arguing was, A-Lex is better than Against. You were referring to Against songs before, not classic ones from Arise.

Sorry, my bad

OK, Against vs A-Lex

I would still take Against over A-Lex because even though Max had left and Derrick was the singer, Sepultura were still on top of their game in terms of delivering kick ass tracks. With Roots and Chaos being successful, Against contained a feel that continued on from Roots. Obviously a few notches down without Max's influence, the album was still quite solid.

Even without Max, I still consider Against to be the last album at the end of an era for Sepultura. After that, the great Sepultura logo changed and the Seps changed direction.

A-Lex (to me), sounds uninspired. Yeah, there are some good tracks....nothing spectacular, but still good. Nothing near the quality that can be heard on albums before Dante. Whether or not its the different song-writing or I'm just over it, A-Lex just doesnt do it for me overall and Against (for me) will reign supreme over it

Fair enough - I do like Against, and I can hear that follow-on from Roots, but I also like the attempt at change that they went on to. Ultimately, as mentioned, post-Max Sepultura is not perfect, and will always suffer in comparison to the earlier stuff.

Thats right.

And I for one hate the position they are in now. No Max, no Igor, the heart and soul of the band have gone. Yes Paulo and Andreas are great, but they must be feeling the pinch of knowing that their music is way way down on what it used to be.

All for changing direction and whatever. But at the end of the day, I don't think its working. Its like a cat or dog that been hit by a car. You want it to survive cos its your pet, but the other half of you just wants to put it out of its misery so there's no more pain

I tried hard to get into the post-Max era but really didn't like it.

I did like the Cavalera Conspiracy album a lot - it was not Sepultura but it was what Soulfly shoud've sounded like in my opinion - modern with elements of Death and Thrash.

I'd like to think that Cavalera Conspiracy is what Sepultura could have been if Max returned to the band. But it has similarities with Soulfly than anything else. I did think that the CC album was better than Conquer...but only just.

Inflikted and Terrorize are just brilliant

Perhaps most insulting to Kisser and Paulo Jr. is that Max's band (Soulfly) is the one that got and still gets almost all the attention. Except for a small group of loyal and dedicated fans, almost nobody cares about Sepultura anymore. Chaos AD and Roots both sold more than 500,000 copies in the US alone. By contrast, I'd be surprised if A-Lex and Dante XXI sold even 25,000 copies. Meanwhile, I'm sure Conquer and Dark Ages have sold somewhere around 200,000 copies at least.

It's tragic, really.

But that's not just because people buy whatever has Max's name on it. Dark Ages and Conquer were better albums than Dante XXI and A-lex.

Plus, of course, Roadrunner throwing money into advertising them.

One would think, though, that Roadrunner would've done a better job promoting post-Max Sepultura back in the late-90's. Just compare the chart position for Roots to the chart position for Against:

Roots - 27
Against - 82

Quite a jump, eh? And then Nation sold so poorly that the band was consequentially dropped from Roadrunner Records. Which is surprising since they were the band that put Roadrunner on the map in the first place.

On a sidenote, it seems the criticism Roots and Chaos AD take is more in hindsight than anything else. When the two albums were released, they received a ton of critical acclaim (from both fans and the press) and became two of the most influential metal albums of the 90's. However, it seems that through the years, the albums have become less popular among metal fans. Probably because of the kinds of bands they spawned and influenced.

But let's be honest: When listening to Arise, it's clear that the band hit a wall in terms of thrash metal. If they followed it with something like Arise Part 2, people would've probably accused them of stagnating (as there wasn't really a whole lot they could do with their death-thrash style that they hadn't already done by that point). And the band themselves have admitted that one of the main reasons for their change in style on Chaos AD was because they felt they were (pun not intended) maxed out in the thrash metal genre and were tired of playing it.

Great comments.

We have to realise that bands evolve on their own terms, not what the fans want to hear or see, but what feels right for the band themselves.

Sepultura went from death to death-thrash to thrash to tribal heavy metal on so on to what they are today. Bands can't really afford to be one-dimensional these days and not evolve on some level. Maybe a few decades ago it could still work, but not really anymore. The biggest point is: a band is a business and it's main objective is to be successful and make money. They may love playing metal, but in the end its the money that keeps the band together.

Some very interesting comments, Sienfeld26.

I think even Roadrunner had jumped on the post-Max Sepultura stuff I still don't think it would've done as well as Sepultura with Max.

Max was the one who had the knack for writing catchy stuff (and catchy sells). Against was anything but catchy. In fact Against was very drab.

If Roadrunner promoted post-Max Sepultura, Against might have done well but the next album would've tanked due to the overall poor quality of Against.

I do think Max was a key song writer in the band.

As for Roots and hindsight, I thought it was a pretty average album when it came out other than a few standout tracks.

I actually got into Sepultura when Roots came out. I heard the song Roots and brought Arise and Beneath The Remains. I liked them and then got Roots which I didn't like so much

As for the hype, a lot of people brought into it. It's always the case. An album can only be critically reviewed some time after it has been released.

(Incidentally I did the same with Metallica. Black album had just come out and I got a copy of Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets which werecheaper than the Black album. As such I was hooked on to the older stuff and didn't really appreciate the newer stuff. Thank the heavens for shops selling back catalogue cheaper than the new releases!)

The last good thrash album, before this we never see Sepultura in metal magazines, they appear only National Geographic.