This week I’ll leave 1984 alone and explore other waters. We can politely ignore the fact that I’m going to the other massive year in my musical fandom, the apocalyptic soundscape of 1991. And few soundscapes were more world-ending than that of Brazil’s metal madmen and their extreme thrash masterpiece.

Sepultura – Arise

Released March 25, 1991 via Roadrunner Records

My Favorite Tracks – Dead Embryonic Cells, Arise, Infected Voice

By 1991, Sepultura were through a few demos and two full-length efforts, and their profile was on the rise all through the world. As heavy metal was moving into more extreme directions, Sepultura were in prime position for their “thrash plus” metal to have an even bigger impact, which it certainly would.

Arise was recorded at Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida during 1990 and ’91. It was produced by the band as well as Morrisound mastermind Scott Burns, who had a massive impact on the early 1990’s metal scene. Burns cranked out a host of extreme metal’s finest albums out of the Morrisound hotbed, and this one was one of the crowning achievements from that period.

Sepultura’s line-up was the same as it had been through their full-length recording history – Max Cavalera was on guitars and vocals, his brother Igor Cavalera was the drummer, Andreas Kisser was the lead guitarist and Paulo Jr. was credited as the band’s bassist. In a twist, Paulo Jr. did not actually play bass on the albums, it was Andreas Kisser who actually recorded the bass parts. This was the final album for that arrangement, Paulo did begin recording bass on the follow-up Chaos A.D.

Today’s album features 9 songs in 42 minutes, a tad more bulky than a lot of peers at the time. A few re-issues and other editions exist with bonus tracks, they can be worth seeking out as they have a supremely excellent cover of Motörhead’s Orgasmatron.

Arise

The title track opens as many songs here do, with a creepy industrial-tinged intro. The setup is brief as the band slams in with riffs coated in their sick guitar tone, simple yet amazingly effective at hooking the listener in to this maelstrom of instrument bashing.

Arise may come off as an uplifting thing on surface level, but this song is about the war between religions, politics and other ways people define themselves as “better” and how it is killing the world. We only “arise” after the obliteration of mankind, under a pale grey sky – this is the end of it all, not a self-help track.

This was released as a single and got a music video, featuring the band playing in a desert. A few poked fun since the scene mimicked Slayer’s Seasons In The Abyss video. MTV was not a fan of the video in the US, not airing it due to a figure of Jesus hung on a cross and in a gas mask.

Dead Embryonic Cells

Another brief, crazy industrial sequence opens into another absolute scorcher of a thrash track. A sick rhythm riff slices through while Andreas offers up some trippy leads over everything. The song is about how people are born into a world already up shit creek. This is not simply a straight up thrash number, either – this song goes through several movements and changes, all the while retaining its core and brutal aura. My personal favorite of the entire Sepultura catalog.

Desperate Cry

This gets a nice, brief acoustic opening segment before launching into its doom-thrash main bit. It’s a tortured song (go figure) about someone facing their dying moments. The acoustic bit pops up again briefly in the middle, before more electric chugging commences to headbang out to the end.

Murder

This is a pretty straight ahead track in terms of thrashtality. The song is a grim look at Brazil’s prison system and their very, very bad track record in dealing with inmates. The topic is grotesquely disturbing and continues to this day, as I understand it.

Subtraction

On to another song that is like a thrash homing missile, this one takes off and doesn’t stop until it hits the target. There is a fair amount of “chug” and groove in this one too, showcasing that Sepultura would be a massive influence on 90’s metal to come. The song is about how a person loses their individuality through the pursuit of money and glory – subtraction of personality, as Max howls in the chorus.

Altered State

Here we get a howling wind start and some South American tribal drums to kick things off. This would be a new addition for Sepultura but would be far from the last – this drumming style would permeate Chaos A.D. The song’s title was taken from a movie of the same name and is about human experimentation on brains, fun stuff.

Under Siege (Regnum Irae)

A small bit of a stylistic departure here as the song moves quite slowly, but the doom-thrash thing fits the album well. Parts of the lyrics are transcribed from the controversial The Last Temptation Of Christ, and the song is about how people are generally born into or forced into their religion of “choice,” rather than freely picking it. In the hands of lesser bands this concept could have fallen apart pretty quick, but Sepultura show they are quite capable of working with different lyrical and musical concepts here.

Meaningless Movements

It’s back to full on thrash here, though still tempered a bit in pace. The song is another study in religion and the effects it can have on personality, essentially warping someone and especially casting out anyone with a dissenting view.

Infected Voice

The album’s closer is a true testament to Sepultura’s sheer thrash insanity, this song goes harder than hard. The running joke has been that the song is about Max Cavalera’s actual voice, which would get confused with a rabid grizzly bear before it was compared to another singer. But the song is actually about the fear of growing up, essentially, having to make tough decisions and all of that. It’s actually the most pragmatic song on an album full of deep and dark themes.

Just as music was shifting rapidly in 1991, Sepultura would truly announce their presence with Arise. The album would chart in at least six countries, no super high positions but a truly international showing. It would gain a silver certification in the UK as well as gold in Indonesia. By 1993 the album had shifted one million worldwide units, just as their true mainstream arrival in Chaos A.D. Would launch.

Arise is also critically hailed by many as Sepultura’s finest hour. The reviews from the metal press have been glowing, both on release and in the 33 years since. It makes many metal “best of” lists. The critical acclaim at the time helped vault Sepultura into widespread coverage just as heavy metal was again mutating into many other forms. The band’s influence on the mainsteam of 90’s metal can be heard in both the “groove thrash” and alt-metal to come and even in the nü-metal that would comprise the latter half of the decade. And Sepultura were kingpins of the extreme metal movement, being vastly influential to death metal and most any form of the world’s darkest arts.

I would personally hear this album for the first time in the late summer of 1991, just as I entered my freshman year of high school. A dude in front of me in algebra class knew I liked metal and asked if I’d heard this yet. I had not, so I borrowed his walkman for a minute and checked this out. I was totally blown away. I had been into the “big four” by this point but hearing this was a total ass kicker. Thank you Shane, wherever you are, for introducing me to this and shaping my musical journey, as well as probably truly rotting my young brain.