Sepultura
Album Title: Machine Messiah
Record Label: Nuclear Blast
Review by Sal Serio
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Sepultura - Machine Messiah
‘Machine Messiah’ marks the 14th studio album by Brazilian masters of thrash metal Sepultura, and emphatically could be their best release since 1989’s ‘Beneath The Remains’. Thanks to the inventive arrangements by the band, and the superbly crisp engineering by Jens Bogren at the Swiss Fascination Street Studios, the Sepultura vision is razor sharp and painstakingly realized on their new 2017 effort.
The opening title track begins with quiet, intricate, guitar picking by Andreas Kisser and the calm, reassuring vocals of Derrick Green, building to a soaring lead guitar solo at 1:45, and by the 2:50 mark becomes more angry as the tempo builds and Green instructs the listener to “bow down to the Machine Messiah”. The next track, “I Am The Enemy” is a brief 2:27 blast of intensely brutal thrash attack. “Phantom Self” is colored by detailed and insanely tight drum fills courtesy of Eloy Casagrande, and features orchestration doing battle with the guitar fills as Green is “transformed in to his Phantom Self”.
The instrumental “Iceberg Dances” is seriously epic and thematic heavy metal, yet is filled out by keyboards and classical guitar! This 46 minute metal manifesto comes to a close with pure, unadulterated classic Sepultura: the fierce statement of “Cyber God”. Not even 2 weeks in to 2017, this release gives me great hope for the promise of powerful musical moments to come.
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