Back when Metallica ruled the metal underground, a festering sore of a band was lurking in the shadows to take the groundwork laid by the now-mainstream group and twist, jump on and grind it into submission.
Sepultura’s music was angrier, faster and more bludgeoning than most bands at the time, and it wouldn’t be long before the group took the mainstream by its throat.
By the end of the ’80s, the Brazilian metal gods had come to the forefront of the music scene and made a name for themselves for calling to mind the anguish in the world. And they had a front-row seat to it becuase they grew up in the slums of Belo Horizonte, where poverty and crime was an everyday occurrence.
Many years and albums later, the group’s first release of the millennium, Nation, has hit the shelves and finds the group channeling its anger into a stirring collection of songs.
It is the group’s second release since the departure of lead screamer Max Cavalera prior to the 1998 recording Against, but the group has found new life behind the hulking Derrick Green, a dreadlocked maniac who shows stunning range on the album, both with his smooth tenor and piercing yowl.
He, along with guitarist Andreas Kisser, bassist Paolo Jr. and drummer Igor Cavalera, Max’s younger brother, are the beneficiaries of the tight, clear production on Nation, and in Cavalera’s words, it is clearly leaps and bounds stronger than Against.
“The good thing about it is that we spent our time on the album,” Igor Cavalera said in an interview with the Daily Lobo. “With Against, we felt like putting out a ball of anger. On this one, we wrote it how we wanted it and we had Derrick’s influence on it. It was us really taking our time writing an album that we could really be happy with.”
Cavalera admitted that the band rushed the recording of Against. He said that with the benefit of extra time in the studio, he, Kisser and Paolo Jr. coaxed different sounds out of Green this time around, instead of just his now-trademark growl.
“That was something that we really wanted to bring out because we knew he had a lot of vocal abilities, but we didn’t have time to explore them,” Cavalera said. “At one point, we really sat down with him and got deep into the ideas that we had.”
Working with producer Steve Evetts aided the band immensely, Cavalera said. He said that with Evetts taking a hands-on approach to the music, the band could focus on playing.
On top of that, Evetts has layered the band’s sound into a tightly woven cloth of dynamics, something that the balls-out, maximum volume production of its earlier releases did not always afford.
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“He really paid a lot of attention to the music, but also each detail, like the drum sound and the bass sound,” Cavalera said. “That was key and important to have someone like that be a producer and engineer.”
The band also wrote an album in its homeland of Brazil for the first time since 1989’s Beneath the Remains.
With Max, the band had a lot of traveling to do — shuttling between Brazil, where Igor, Paolo Jr., and Kisser called home, and Phoenix, Ariz., where Max took up residence with wife Gloria. Now, with Green, a Cleveland native, relocating to Brazil along with the other three members, Cavalera said it helped with the recording process.
“Actually, the real reason for us to record in Brazil was to be close to our family,” Cavalera said. “It was nothing sound-wise or to have us listen to different styles of music. It just really helped with our state of mind.”
Nation, features several special guests, including Hatebreed vocalist Jamey Jasta on “Human Cause,”
“I had always helped Max and Andreas with ideas, but I never sat down to structure it,” Calvalera said. “I just started paying more attention, and it became easy.”
Thematically, Nation is about change. It’s about forcing people to take notice of travesties in the world, and perhaps, most importantly, the idea that all of the world’s inhabitants are one and the same. Cavalera said Sepultura will be carrying that same message on the road with them this summer.
“Someone that comes to see Sepultura, they don’t really care if Derrick is Black, or if I’m Brazilian,” Cavalera said. “They enjoy the music. So, we’ll try to mix that idea with the American kids so that they feel like they are part of our family. The whole thing with Nation was to try and make something like that stand out.”
Sepultura, along with Hatebreed, Puya and Endo roll into Albuquerque’s Sunshine Theatre Thursday night. The all-ages show begins at 7 p.m. and tickets are available at all Ticketmaster outlets for $17, and $20 at the door.
