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Trollheart · 10-05-2013, 08:24 AM

Dante XXI --- Sepultura --- 2006 (SPV)

I knew that if I was running Metal Month I would eventually have to tackle at least some death metal bands, so with The Batlord's advice ringing in my ears that "ALL death metal bands are growlers, dude!" I steeled myself and began looking. Having heard good things about Sepultura I was intrigued to find that they had an album based on the concept of Dante's "Inferno", and as I've read this I thought this might be interesting. So I'm starting off with this one.

The first two tracks are almost totally instrumental, in two different ways. The intro, "Lost", is nothing more than creepy sounds with a voice either backwards masked (though I think I caught the words "are you ready" a few times...) or heavily effected muttering, and this goes on into "Dark wood of error", which for much of its just over two minutes features pretty much nothing other than the hammering drumwork of Igor Cavalera, who apparently was playing his swansong on this album. Then hard punchy guitar kicks in and finally the vocals. Now, this is as everyone knows, not my cup of Tetley, but for growlers Derrick Green is not the worst. It's still all shouted nonsense to me, but then I've never made my dislike of death metal a secret.

On we go into "Convicted for life", and the guitars are certainly screeching and grinding, with thumping percussion. You know, looking down at the personell on this album I was amazed to see a credt for horns and strings --- on a death metal album? Well, we shall see. This is a little slower --- though not much --- and Green's vocal still puts me in mind of a man suffering some sort of mental breakdown, but let's just accept I hate any sort of death vocals and just leave it at that, shall we? I'm sure he's great at what he does, but this is not singing I would want to listen to for any sort of protracted period.

"City of Dis" has a nice, almost melodic guitar opening, with something akin to a sitar sound there too, then Green's vocal screams across it as Cavalera's almost machine-gun drumming pounds along. Hmm, almost a rap vocal here, stylistically. Interesting. Must say I don't see the Dante connection so far, though when you can't really understand the vocalist it's probably going to be hard to work out any lyrics at all. "False" opens on another strong guitar riff before Green bellows all over it and the drumming thunders along again: you can certainly hear the anger in this! Jesus man! Have a Strepsil! You'll need one after all that roaring.

Can I go out on a limb at this point and say I don't expect any ballads on this album? "False" almost fades away on the second minute of its three, but then comes pounding back on a chugging guitar riff. To be honest I could probably enjoy this if it wasn't for the singing. Oh well, that I suppose is death metal for you. Very Black Sabbath opening to "Fighting on", and it's mercifully almost a quarter of the way through before Derrick Green decides to join us. Surprisingly enough, when his voice drops to a low, gutteral mutter it's a lot more palatable to me, though of course I guess you couldn't expect anyone to sing a whole album like that. Still, it's better than the roaring. There's cello and violin then for the short instrumental "Limbo" before we piledrive into "Ostia", and Green is with us from the beginning. Oh no.

More punching guitar with a somewhat restrained (for Sepultura, that is) line in drumming, track a little slower but what it lacks in speed it makes up for in power. Violins come back in rather unexpectedly about halfway as the song really slows down for a nice instrumental piece before it's all blown to hell by Green's scream and the guitars take over again. Hey, it was never going to last, we all knew that. But it was nice. Speaking of nice, there's a really effective echoey little bass line to finish, and then "Buried words" opens with what sounds like fires crackling --- maybe that ties in to the "Inferno" concept? --- before it takes off on busy guitar again and growled vocals from Green.

Sounds like there may be horns in this? Decent song to be fair and for once Green's vocal actually complements the lyric, very angry as he sings "Your words are dead/ I buried them/ They're dead!" A real raw grinder then in "Nuclear seven" with a sort of Megadeth vibe to it, and Green's voice not as grating as it has been up to now. "Repeating the horror" has a great threatening guitar riff running through it, very ominous, and again that weird sitar sound, plus almost conga drums there for a second. And some sort of crazy metal rap! And congas again at the end.

There's another short instrumental then in "Eunoe", a real cello fest that lasts all of thirteen seconds then "Crown and miter" pushes the destruct switch and we're off at full volume, speed and roar as the album approaches its end. One more tiny instrumental consisting of mostly a single echoey drum stroke and the album comes to a close on rather surprisingly, again, acoustic guitar with some sort of chant in the background as "Still flame", the longest track on the album at just under five minutes --- this is death metal, after all! --- seems to be ready to let us off lightly, though I'm expecting a mad ambush at any moment. Right now though it's soft, almost ambient piano with attendant violins and cellos, gentle percussion and so far no vocal. And we're halfway through.

The first real sounds of electric guitar insinuate themselves into the melody, but not harshly, and with only one minute to go I'm convinced there will be no singing on this final track, nor does there seem to be time for a big BOO! from Sepultura, as we're fast approaching the final seconds. No, it's a big horn and cello ending with dramatic cinematic drumming, oh and then a final growl from Derrick Green to send us on our way. Guess he has to have the last word!

TRACKLISTING

1. Lost (intro)
2. Dark wood of error
3. Convicted in life
4. City of Dis
5. False
6. Fighting on
7. Limbo
8. Ostia
9. Buried words
10. Nuclear seven
11. Repeating the horror
12. Eunoe
13. Crown and miter
14. Primium mobile
15. Still flame

This will forever be the stumbling block for me with death metal bands. While the music is still not what I would listen to of choice, it's not bad and were it not for the gutteral, often savage and sometime unintelligible singing I could perhaps grow to like it, or at least tolerate it. But to me, if you're having a fit you should be in hospital, not on stage, and that's certainly how Derrick Green comes across to me for the larger percentage of this album. It doesn't quite ruin it for me, but it sure as hell doesn't enhance it.

Guess that makes me a pussy, eh, Batlord?

Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepultura

10-05-2013, 08:24 AM	#1919 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Dante XXI --- Sepultura --- 2006 (SPV) I knew that if I was running Metal Month I would eventually have to tackle at least some death metal bands, so with The Batlord's advice ringing in my ears that "ALL death metal bands are growlers, dude!" I steeled myself and began looking. Having heard good things about Sepultura I was intrigued to find that they had an album based on the concept of Dante's "Inferno", and as I've read this I thought this might be interesting. So I'm starting off with this one. The first two tracks are almost totally instrumental, in two different ways. The intro, "Lost", is nothing more than creepy sounds with a voice either backwards masked (though I think I caught the words "are you ready" a few times...) or heavily effected muttering, and this goes on into "Dark wood of error", which for much of its just over two minutes features pretty much nothing other than the hammering drumwork of Igor Cavalera, who apparently was playing his swansong on this album. Then hard punchy guitar kicks in and finally the vocals. Now, this is as everyone knows, not my cup of Tetley, but for growlers Derrick Green is not the worst. It's still all shouted nonsense to me, but then I've never made my dislike of death metal a secret. On we go into "Convicted for life", and the guitars are certainly screeching and grinding, with thumping percussion. You know, looking down at the personell on this album I was amazed to see a credt for horns and strings --- on a death metal album? Well, we shall see. This is a little slower --- though not much --- and Green's vocal still puts me in mind of a man suffering some sort of mental breakdown, but let's just accept I hate any sort of death vocals and just leave it at that, shall we? I'm sure he's great at what he does, but this is not singing I would want to listen to for any sort of protracted period. "City of Dis" has a nice, almost melodic guitar opening, with something akin to a sitar sound there too, then Green's vocal screams across it as Cavalera's almost machine-gun drumming pounds along. Hmm, almost a rap vocal here, stylistically. Interesting. Must say I don't see the Dante connection so far, though when you can't really understand the vocalist it's probably going to be hard to work out any lyrics at all. "False" opens on another strong guitar riff before Green bellows all over it and the drumming thunders along again: you can certainly hear the anger in this! Jesus man! Have a Strepsil! You'll need one after all that roaring. Can I go out on a limb at this point and say I don't expect any ballads on this album? "False" almost fades away on the second minute of its three, but then comes pounding back on a chugging guitar riff. To be honest I could probably enjoy this if it wasn't for the singing. Oh well, that I suppose is death metal for you. Very Black Sabbath opening to "Fighting on", and it's mercifully almost a quarter of the way through before Derrick Green decides to join us. Surprisingly enough, when his voice drops to a low, gutteral mutter it's a lot more palatable to me, though of course I guess you couldn't expect anyone to sing a whole album like that. Still, it's better than the roaring. There's cello and violin then for the short instrumental "Limbo" before we piledrive into "Ostia", and Green is with us from the beginning. Oh no. More punching guitar with a somewhat restrained (for Sepultura, that is) line in drumming, track a little slower but what it lacks in speed it makes up for in power. Violins come back in rather unexpectedly about halfway as the song really slows down for a nice instrumental piece before it's all blown to hell by Green's scream and the guitars take over again. Hey, it was never going to last, we all knew that. But it was nice. Speaking of nice, there's a really effective echoey little bass line to finish, and then "Buried words" opens with what sounds like fires crackling --- maybe that ties in to the "Inferno" concept? --- before it takes off on busy guitar again and growled vocals from Green. Sounds like there may be horns in this? Decent song to be fair and for once Green's vocal actually complements the lyric, very angry as he sings "Your words are dead/ I buried them/ They're dead!" A real raw grinder then in "Nuclear seven" with a sort of Megadeth vibe to it, and Green's voice not as grating as it has been up to now. "Repeating the horror" has a great threatening guitar riff running through it, very ominous, and again that weird sitar sound, plus almost conga drums there for a second. And some sort of crazy metal rap! And congas again at the end. There's another short instrumental then in "Eunoe", a real cello fest that lasts all of thirteen seconds then "Crown and miter" pushes the destruct switch and we're off at full volume, speed and roar as the album approaches its end. One more tiny instrumental consisting of mostly a single echoey drum stroke and the album comes to a close on rather surprisingly, again, acoustic guitar with some sort of chant in the background as "Still flame", the longest track on the album at just under five minutes --- this is death metal, after all! --- seems to be ready to let us off lightly, though I'm expecting a mad ambush at any moment. Right now though it's soft, almost ambient piano with attendant violins and cellos, gentle percussion and so far no vocal. And we're halfway through. The first real sounds of electric guitar insinuate themselves into the melody, but not harshly, and with only one minute to go I'm convinced there will be no singing on this final track, nor does there seem to be time for a big BOO! from Sepultura, as we're fast approaching the final seconds. No, it's a big horn and cello ending with dramatic cinematic drumming, oh and then a final growl from Derrick Green to send us on our way. Guess he has to have the last word! TRACKLISTING 1. Lost (intro) 2. Dark wood of error 3. Convicted in life 4. City of Dis 5. False 6. Fighting on 7. Limbo 8. Ostia 9. Buried words 10. Nuclear seven 11. Repeating the horror 12. Eunoe 13. Crown and miter 14. Primium mobile 15. Still flame This will forever be the stumbling block for me with death metal bands. While the music is still not what I would listen to of choice, it's not bad and were it not for the gutteral, often savage and sometime unintelligible singing I could perhaps grow to like it, or at least tolerate it. But to me, if you're having a fit you should be in hospital, not on stage, and that's certainly how Derrick Green comes across to me for the larger percentage of this album. It doesn't quite ruin it for me, but it sure as hell doesn't enhance it. Guess that makes me a pussy, eh, Batlord? Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepultura __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 10-25-2013 at 11:59 AM.