Sepultura - Machine Messiah

Beginning this year and this feat of starting a blog about my thoughts and experiences with metal with my first post being about a new album by Sepultura is certainly challenging in that it is by Sepultura, a band with a long and understandably controversial history and a comparatively large and varied catalog.

That being said, their 14th studio album, contextually, does much of what their past several albums with Derek Green have done. Andreas Kisser and company have definitely established more comfortable grip executing the type of somewhat experimental groove metal found on this album and albums like Dante XXI than trying to awkwardly carry forward the tribal-infused Roots sound the way they did on Against and Nation. For those who steadfastly believe that the Cavalera Brothers, especially Max, are what made Sepultura worthwhile and find Derek’s vocals unpalatable, in general or in the context of Sepultura, this album probably is not convincing them any better than A-Lex or Kairos did. Those who have continued to invest in the band’s artistic endeavors with the openness required to ride the wave of change (mild as it was) the group underwent are likely fairly or rather satisfied with Machine Messiah. 

Being almost 20 years into the ever-elongating “second half”of their career (which is now longer and has produced more albums than their Max-era), Sepultura has had to, reasonably, prove continuously that their notoriety is still earned and that this non-classic incarnation of the band still indeed deserves to carry the famous Sepultura name.

I have thoroughly enjoyed both sides of their discography, not necessarily comparing the two major eras by the same criteria where they are distinctly different and remaining open to their evolving ideas for their evolving band in our evolving music world. I understand that people are attached to Beneath the Remains and Chaos A.D. and that the tumultuous transition was, and is, disappointing and confusing for many. I love those albums as well, and I respect Max and his contributions to metal through Sepultura and through Soulfly and his other numerous projects.

Machine Messiah has shown me, in my time repeatedly listening to it and the rest of the band’s catalog, that “new Sepultura” is indeed still a respectable and talented band and that their new millennium output continues to be intriguing. While definitely stylistically different, Derek Green shows on this album that he is, especially currently, a more capable vocalist than Max. While his style is abrasive to many who were used to Max, he has been consistently tastefully aggressive and on point throughout his tenure with the band and he continues to do so on this album, even upping the ante with more fitting clean singing than that which was ever previously used. The instrumental parts, as well, all reflect parallel ambition to explore that which, although not necessarily new to metal, is new to Sepultura. The eerie string-centric orchestral backing on “Phantom Self” serves the song exceptionally well and the acoustic guitar virtuosity in the latter moments of “Iceberg Dances” serves as a prime example of the stylistic diversity that does present itself on the album. All throughout the album, the drums refrain from overcompensating with gratuitous double-bass pumping, instead accenting the songs where needed without overshadowing the music or making it messy.

Overall, the album is well thought-out, well put-together, and well-presented; it beckons numerous listens and it serves the Sepultura name honorably. It is not the surprising, uber-eccentric, or dynamic modern classic it was kind of being hyped up to be during the end of 2016, and its somewhat homogeneous production, guitar tone, and vocal delivery make many of its musical moments blend together in a way that expends all the novelty early on in the track listing and leaves the tail end of the album feeling a bit like just an echo of the first half or so of the album. “I Am the Enemy” is also, although an addition to the album’s diversity, a song that seems to have been as rushed in writing as its length among the other songs suggests it was, and it stood out to me for the wrong reasons (being much less genuinely invigorated than the rest of the tracks on the list) when listening to the album from front to back. It is still a fine death-infused groove metal album that fares very well for the band creatively, one that will establish itself as a strong point of reference for the viability of their continued existence. I liked it a lot, and I’ll definitely be giving it more of my time in the future, maybe even time dedicated to expanding this post.