SEPULTURA
"SEPULNATION: THE STUDIO ALBUMS 1998-2009"
(AGAINST, NATION, ROORBACK, DANTE XXI AND A-LEX)
By Enrico Spinelli
Preamble
It happens that in the days of ISDN, light years away from YouTube, people rely on word of mouth and reviews in non-commercial music; then it happens that they tell you that the best Sepultura are those from "Beneath The Remains' to" Roots "(the non plus ultra) and that the rest is negligible. Then by chance, you find yourself holding the first 6 albums of the Brazilian band and you realize that even the first two are very valid and that indeed (at least for me) "Roots" is anything but memorable. And then you have the doubt that maybe even the works after the split with the historic singer Max Cavalera are not so terrible. Finally a box set that contains 5 and do you think that maybe it could be an opportunity - also given the low cost - to check whether or not it is worth having them all, given that a mutilated discography always makes my heart bleed (In Flames VI - I hate it !!! Sorry about the OT).
PROS and CONS
Let's say that if I had focused on the first three works of the box set my sentence would have been more than negative: Derrick Green, the new singer, does not have the vocal malice of Max, and his screams are in my view useless aggressive, lacking bite (on one piece, La Reza, I seemed to hear a Sora Lella - rest in peace - with laryngitis) and the obsessive growl, resting mostly on mid-tempos, gives the listening a feeling of disheartening flatness. Add the tribal inserts and that's it. Putting together the best pieces of these records would perhaps come up with an acceptable job. Then, at the bottom of Roorback, the presence of some covers is highly questionable: do you really want me to believe that Massive Attack is an inspiration for the band ??? Angel is perhaps the ugliest cover I've ever heard... and things certainly don't improve with U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky", oh my!!!
In short, I was desperate! Fortunately, the music changes, at least in part, with the following Dante XXI and A-Lex (both concept albums, the first dedicated to the Divine Comedy, the second to A Clockwork Orange), where a return to more death-thrash sounds is observed, to a better variety in the tracks, even if the various instrumental interludes make the listening rather fractional; the songs are not bad, and Derrick seems more comfortable than him, but to me they remain superfluous, harmless, without a track that remains truly memorable. The desire to listen to them certainly remains, and this is good, unlike the previous three, but at the same time the feeling of some magic missing, remains.
In conclusion, it is a work that I certainly recommend to the completists of the band and to those who want to give a chance to the post-Cavalera Sepultura, for those who are skeptical I doubt that this work can solve their doubts.
Personally, I do not hide the pale optimism that remained on me after the last two, so there is a good chance that I will also get the last 4 albums of the group... but that's another story and maybe we'll talk about it later.