In the beginning of 2020 Sepultura released their 15th album, brilliant and thoughtful Quadra. Well, who knew that the lyrics from the song “Isolation” will become prophetic – “…in the cage you will remain, they lock you down for life” – and the whole world will be in isolation for a long time. There were no concerts, musical industry collapsed and musicians were forced to find other ways to deliver their music (or at least to do something just to stay sane). Sepultura decided to redefine their songs, playing them with some musicians from other bands and a year later to release it in a form of an album, SepulQuarta.
“SepulQuarta was born at the very beginning of the pandemic when everything was halted”, guitarist Andreas Kisser remembers. “We had a new album out, but we couldn’t tour for it. Therefore, we created this recurring event where we could talk with our fans around the world, play our music and exchange ideas, it was a blast! SepulQuarta kept us alive and strong throughout one of the most difficult times in human history.” “Doing SepulQuarta during this period allowed me to stay in contact with music. Playing my instrument was the only thing left to do in this pandemic,” adds drummer Eloy Casagrande.
In this album you can see such famous musicians like already disfavored David Ellefson, which played “Territory”, Scott Ian (you can hear his guitar in “Cut Throat”), Devin Townsend (“Mask”), Matt Heafy (“Slave New World”) and finally Phil Campbell, who can be heard on Sepultura‘s old Motörhead cover “Orgasmatron”. However, SepulQuarta contains not only old songs from Cavalera era but some relatively fresh material: in “Vandals Nest” from the album Machine Messiah (2017) Alex Skolnick can be heard and Danko Jones helped to perform “Sepulnation”. Some maybe less famous (but not less talented) musicians are also participated in this record. “Ratamahatta” with Joao Barone (Os Paralamas do Sucesso‘s drummer) и Charles Gavin (producer and Titãs‘ drummer) sounds quite unusual in comparison to the original one but it’s still full of groove.
If the presence of the old songs is understandable and warranted in a way, “Fear; Pain; Chaos; Suffering” from the last album with Emmily Baretto, who also performed in original version of this song was quite surprising for me. Nevertheless, the band included this song probably because of their willingness to play their new material live, at least somehow.
Many fans still interested how would the songs from Max and Igor Cavalera sound with Derrick Green’s vocal and Eloy Casagrande’s drumming. SepulQuarta gives them such an opportunity. However it worth to mention that Derrick tries to sound like a young Max but I think he understands that the fans already became accustomed to some significant sound and some radical changes will not be good for it, unlike the new songs where Derrick can show all he’s got. At the same time Eloy here at all his best with fast, aggressive and very dense drumming. Amazing!
But is this album valuable for the fans especially when there are no new songs in it? The answer is “yes” if you ask me because it’s not only about revisiting the old material or great feats with great musicians. SepulQuarta is fully home recorded: every member recorded his parts at home, in his home studio and then Conrado Ruther mixed and mastered the songs. So with this album Sepultura shows that they are not only ready to move forward while keeping their legacy gently but also that nothing can prevent them from making the music. I understand how pathetic was the last sentence but that’s true and it causes nothing but respect.
SepulQuarta was released on August, 13th via Nuclear Blast.
If you really would like to support Antichrist, you can just Share our article.
You can also support Antichrist by sending a couple bucks to cover some webhosting expenses. =>> PayPal
