Sepultura "Roots (1997, CD, Roadrunner Records Japan Reissue, RRCY-3018)"

Roots is the sixth studio album by Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura. It was released in Europe on February 20, 1996 and in the U.S. three weeks later on March 12 by Roadrunner Records. It is the band's last studio album to feature founding member and vocalist/rhythm guitarist Max Cavalera.

Following the shift to slower tempos and Latin-tinged rhythms on the album Chaos A.D., Roots delves even further into Brazilian musical textures and features significant contributions from iconic Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown, who guided and arranged the sections throughout the album that feature ensemble percussion playing. Both in sound and overall aesthetic, Roots is also a conscious nod to Brazil's marginalized indigenous population and cultures. The song "Itsári" features a Xavante chant that re-appears on the song "Born Stubborn" and serves as a loose thematic thread for the whole album, which on the whole showcases the band's increased affinity for experimentation and collaboration.

"Lookaway" features guest appearances by Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis, then-Korn drummer David Silveria, House of Pain/Limp Bizkit turntablist DJ Lethal, and Faith No More/Mr. Bungle vocalist Mike Patton. Riff-wise, Roots also draws influence from the then-surging nu metal movement, specifically Korn (whose first two albums were also produced by Roots producer Ross Robinson) and Deftones. After leaving the band, Max Cavalera would continue to pursue the nu metal and "world" stylings of Roots with his solo project Soulfly.

Since its release, Roots has sold over two million copies worldwide.

Roots is the product of a concerted effort on the band's part to embrace its Brazilian heritage. On many levels, the album reflects Sepultura's heightened focus on the music, culture, and politics of their native country. The overarching concept for the album was inspired by the film At Play in the Fields of the Lord (particularly the scene in which Tom Berenger's character parachutes onto a tribe). The movie inspired Max Cavalera to want to record with an indigenous Brazilian tribe. After convincing Roadrunner Records to support the project, Cavalera contacted Angela Pappiani, at the time the communications coordinator for Brazil's Núcleo de Cultura Indígena (Indigenous Culture Center). Nearly one year after Cavalera's initial contact with Roadrunner, Pappiani arranged for a small party including band, herself, Robinson, and then-manager Gloria Cavalera to travel to Mato Grosso, Brazil to visit the Xavante tribe and record with them. At the time, the members of Sepultura were only peripherally aware of the indigenous tribes residing in Brazil's interior.

In a 2016 interview with Nashville Scene, Igor Cavalera remembered:

Every second of that trip was insane in a very inspiring way. But there's a few things that really stand out. Like when they explained to us that the only way they wrote music was if someone in the tribe dreamed of the music. They couldn't just write a lyric or a melody. It has to be transmitted to them in a dream. From a musician's point of view, it was like, "Wow, this is a completely different way of approaching music."

University of Iowa anthropology professor Laura Graham explained the role of music in Xavante culture to PopMatters in 2016:

For them, music functions as a medium for entering into other realms—whether they be other dimensions of existence or other cultures. Well before they had any contact with white people, part of their culture has always entailed that men engage the spirit world, especially through music. This happens in their dreams. Not all, but most of their music is inspired—you could say "composed", although they say received—in their dreams through encounters with other worlds. When people come and visit the community from the outside, one of the things the Xavante ask them to do is sing them a song. Music is this medium for entering into relations with others—others meaning spiritual beings or, for example, white society or other cultures. The Xavante want to be known and they want their culture to be known. They want their music to be known because they think it's beautiful and view it as a contribution to humanity. It's like, "We have something beautiful to contribute to humanity—and, by the way, here we are suffering. We want people to know who we are and that we exist." And so when they got this proposal from a musical group that wanted to come jam and share music with them, they loved it.

A spokesman for the tribe looked back on the collaboration: "We had seen pictures of Sepultura and we knew that they were different, with their long hair and many tattoos. We also knew that they had been discriminated, like we were. Because of that we were very curious about them."

Meeting the Xavante was by several accounts a life-changing experience that has continued to resonate with the members of Sepultura ever since. Igor has also said that the band identified a lot with the natives: "In a certain way, I think that we, as a band, had a lot of things in common with the Xavante Indians. We also lived on the edge of society, and our music and lifestyle is a long way from being assimilated and respected by that society."

After the trip, recording resumed with Robinson at Indigo Ranch, at the time Robinson's studio of choice. According to the same 2016 Nashville Scene article, by that point the band had amassed "an overabundance of material." Igor Cavalera remembered that it was a challenge to prevent the album from becoming "a gigantic jam that didn't turn into actual songs." He added: "It was quite a difficult record to finish. We did so much recording that the amount of stuff we had going on was quite crazy. We had to make sure not to let anything really special slip by. It was tricky to go through all of it, and it took a lot of time to find out what would work with what we were already writing."

According to Korn guitarist Brian Welch, in a November 1996 interview, his "own Bigger Muff guitar pedal" that he had initially modified and then used for his band was reused to his "great dismay" for recording the Roots album.

Roots represents a significant shift in direction for Sepultura. On several levels, the album reflects a concerted effort on the band's part to embrace its Brazilian heritage, with a heightened focus on Brazilian culture that is strikingly apparent in the music. Musically speaking, the inspiration for the shift was twofold: One was the desire to further experiment with both Latin and indigenous strains of the music of Brazil, including the percussive style of the Salvador, Bahia samba reggae group Olodum. Roots was also inspired by Korn's self-titled debut, with its heavily down-tuned guitars.

Roots is a groove metal and nu metal album that incorporates strong elements of aforementioned nu metal, thrash metal, death metal, world music, various Brazilian musical styles (including Brazilian folk music), tribal music, and ambient field recordings. All of the songs on Roots draw from these styles, with the band often blending them in unconventional ways and at times super-imposing them onto one another through creative mixing and editing in post-production. Several songs feature Brazilian instrumentation that had up to that point never been used by a metal band (certainly not one of Sepultura's stature), and the album is peppered with ensemble percussion sections played by the band along with Carlinhos Brown.

Of the album's prominent Latin influence, Igor Cavalera told Nashville Scene:

I'd always wanted to do a little more stuff with a Latin feel, but it took until Chaos A.D. to realize how we could make that into something that wasn't too clichéd. That was always my fear. I'd been exposed to samba and the African Brazilian rhythms before I played the drums, and I'd always had a lot of caution about incorporating them in the right way, and not doing it for the sake of just having them there. It took us a lot of research and time to make sure that we did it in a way that felt completely natural. It wasn't just like "OK, we like this and it makes sense, so let's just do it." It took a lot to develop.

Disparate elements of Brazilian culture permeate every aspect of Roots, from the music to the lyrics to the artwork and visuals to the videos the band made for the songs "Roots Bloody Roots," "Attitude," and "Ratamahatta." The album cover features an indigenous man of the Karajá tribe taken from a 1990 banknote of the discontinued Brazilian cruzeiro, to which artist Michael Whelan added a locket with Sepultura's "tribal S" logo and a background of red roots.

Much of Roots references Brazilian culture, history, lore, and politics, either directly or indirectly. According to Max Cavalera, "Roots Bloody Roots" is "about believe in yourself, about be proud of your heritage, proud of where you come from. Really powerful but simple lyrics. So it's really about just be down with your own roots and believe in your roots". (In a 1996 MTV Europe clip, Max Cavalera explained the meaning behind the song as: "Don't give in. What you believe is for life, even if people try all the time to change you. The song is about 'don't let the bastards grind you down.'")

"Ratamahatta" is "a celebration of life in Brazil's favela slums, sung all in Portuguese, which tells the stories of people like Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) and Lampião, the leader of an early 1900s outlaw gang from north Brazil, whose head was put on public display after he was captured". "Ambush" is "a tribute to murdered South American rain-forest activist Chico Mendes". "Dictatorshit" addresses the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état. "Endangered Species" addresses environmental destruction.

"Cut Throat" is about Epic Records. (The last words in the song are "Enslavement, Pathetic, Ignorant, Corporations". This spells EPIC, the record company with which Sepultura had some trouble during their previous album, Chaos A.D.)

The lyrics to "Attitude" were co-written by Dana Wells, Max Cavalera's stepson, whose death (in part) led to the events which caused Max to leave the band. Dana also came up with the concept for the video for the song, featuring Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experts the Gracie family.

Since the release of Roots, there have been cases where other metal bands who are not of Western (i.e.: European or American) origin have combined metal with music from their own native regions, though none of those bands have reached the same level of visibility or commercial success that Sepultura achieved with Roots. Chthonic, for example, blend symphonic death metal with traditional Taiwanese music and mythology; Melechesh play black metal while drawing from Assyrian/Babylonian/Middle Eastern mythology and symbology; Tengger Cavalry combine metal with Mongolian throat singing and classical Chinese instrumentation in both electric and acoustic settings.

Speaking to Kerrang! in 2008, Max Cavalera looked back on Roots:

Roots came from a blurry dream I had about going to the rainforest. Wine may have been involved. In the end, when we actually went into the forest to record, it was unbelievable. The whole album was a huge personal journey for me, and as a Brazilian, it felt as an incredible achievement. Everyone was inspired and Igor was at the top of his game. The percussion was crazy and we worked with so many great musicians, in the end coming out with a 15-minutes drum jam that someone likened to a crazy Brazilian Pink Floyd. When we took the album to Roadrunner they loved it except for the title. They thought it would sound like a Bob Marley tribute album. We explained it to them, and thankfully they got it.

As for the Xavantes, both their leader at the time of the band's visit (Cipassé) and Pappiani agree that Roots helped the tribe gain some visibility, to the point that people would actually identify them as Xavantes instead of just calling them "indigenous people". Pappiani noticed an increase in people's interest for information on the tribe and their music.

On March 25, 2021, French heavy metal band Gojira released the single "Amazonia", a song about anti-deforestation of the Amazon and the protection of Brazilian indigenous peoples' rights. Shortly after its release on April 15, frontman Joe Duplantier in an interview with Blabbermouth.net was asked his thoughts about comparing Amazonia to Sepultura, to which he said:

I go, "Yup." And it's a compliment, and there is no shame here. And we ripped them off, but we didn't do it on purpose. But we realized it right after. We were, like, "Oh, that sounds like SEPULTURA. Ahhh, whatever." It's a tribute to Sepultura — how about that? It's about Brazil. It's about the Amazon. It's tribal.

Tracklist:

1. Roots Bloody Roots 03:32  
2. Attitude 04:15   
3. Cut-Throat 02:44   
4. Ratamahatta 04:30   
5. Breed Apart 04:00   
6. Straighthate 05:21  
7. Spit 02:45
8. Lookaway 05:25   
9. Dusted 04:03   
10. Born Stubborn 04:07  
11. Jasco 01:57   
12. Itsári 04:48  
13. Ambush 04:38
14. Endangered Species 05:19
15. Dictatorshit 01:23
16. Chaos BC  05:13
17. Canyon Jam 13:16   

Time:   01:17:16

Recording information:

Produced by Ross Robinson and Sepultura

Engineered by Chuck Johnson

Additional engineering by Richard Kaplan

Second engineered by Rob Agnello

Mixed by Andy Wallace at Soundtrack Studios, New York City

Mix engineered by Steve Sisco

Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound, New York City

Recorded at Indigo Ranch, Malibu, CA.

Mixed at Soundtrack Studios, New York, NY.

"Itsári" recorded live in the "Aldeia Pimentel Barbosa", home of the Xavantes tribe, located in Mato Grosso, Brasil, on 5 November 1995.

Sepultura "Roots (2005, 2CD, Roadrunner Records, Digipak, Special Edition, 168618154-2)"

Roots is the sixth studio album by Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura. It was released in Europe on February 20, 1996 and in the U.S. three weeks later on March 12 by Roadrunner Records. It is the band's last studio album to feature founding member and vocalist/rhythm guitarist Max Cavalera.

Following the shift to slower tempos and Latin-tinged rhythms on the album Chaos A.D., Roots delves even further into Brazilian musical textures and features significant contributions from iconic Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown, who guided and arranged the sections throughout the album that feature ensemble percussion playing. Both in sound and overall aesthetic, Roots is also a conscious nod to Brazil's marginalized indigenous population and cultures. The song "Itsári" features a Xavante chant that re-appears on the song "Born Stubborn" and serves as a loose thematic thread for the whole album, which on the whole showcases the band's increased affinity for experimentation and collaboration.

"Lookaway" features guest appearances by Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis, then-Korn drummer David Silveria, House of Pain/Limp Bizkit turntablist DJ Lethal, and Faith No More/Mr. Bungle vocalist Mike Patton. Riff-wise, Roots also draws influence from the then-surging nu metal movement, specifically Korn (whose first two albums were also produced by Roots producer Ross Robinson) and Deftones. After leaving the band, Max Cavalera would continue to pursue the nu metal and "world" stylings of Roots with his solo project Soulfly.

Since its release, Roots has sold over two million copies worldwide.

Roots is the product of a concerted effort on the band's part to embrace its Brazilian heritage. On many levels, the album reflects Sepultura's heightened focus on the music, culture, and politics of their native country. The overarching concept for the album was inspired by the film At Play in the Fields of the Lord (particularly the scene in which Tom Berenger's character parachutes onto a tribe). The movie inspired Max Cavalera to want to record with an indigenous Brazilian tribe. After convincing Roadrunner Records to support the project, Cavalera contacted Angela Pappiani, at the time the communications coordinator for Brazil's Núcleo de Cultura Indígena (Indigenous Culture Center). Nearly one year after Cavalera's initial contact with Roadrunner, Pappiani arranged for a small party including band, herself, Robinson, and then-manager Gloria Cavalera to travel to Mato Grosso, Brazil to visit the Xavante tribe and record with them. At the time, the members of Sepultura were only peripherally aware of the indigenous tribes residing in Brazil's interior.

In a 2016 interview with Nashville Scene, Igor Cavalera remembered:

Every second of that trip was insane in a very inspiring way. But there's a few things that really stand out. Like when they explained to us that the only way they wrote music was if someone in the tribe dreamed of the music. They couldn't just write a lyric or a melody. It has to be transmitted to them in a dream. From a musician's point of view, it was like, "Wow, this is a completely different way of approaching music."

University of Iowa anthropology professor Laura Graham explained the role of music in Xavante culture to PopMatters in 2016:

For them, music functions as a medium for entering into other realms—whether they be other dimensions of existence or other cultures. Well before they had any contact with white people, part of their culture has always entailed that men engage the spirit world, especially through music. This happens in their dreams. Not all, but most of their music is inspired—you could say "composed", although they say received—in their dreams through encounters with other worlds. When people come and visit the community from the outside, one of the things the Xavante ask them to do is sing them a song. Music is this medium for entering into relations with others—others meaning spiritual beings or, for example, white society or other cultures. The Xavante want to be known and they want their culture to be known. They want their music to be known because they think it's beautiful and view it as a contribution to humanity. It's like, "We have something beautiful to contribute to humanity—and, by the way, here we are suffering. We want people to know who we are and that we exist." And so when they got this proposal from a musical group that wanted to come jam and share music with them, they loved it.

A spokesman for the tribe looked back on the collaboration: "We had seen pictures of Sepultura and we knew that they were different, with their long hair and many tattoos. We also knew that they had been discriminated, like we were. Because of that we were very curious about them."

Meeting the Xavante was by several accounts a life-changing experience that has continued to resonate with the members of Sepultura ever since. Igor has also said that the band identified a lot with the natives: "In a certain way, I think that we, as a band, had a lot of things in common with the Xavante Indians. We also lived on the edge of society, and our music and lifestyle is a long way from being assimilated and respected by that society."

After the trip, recording resumed with Robinson at Indigo Ranch, at the time Robinson's studio of choice. According to the same 2016 Nashville Scene article, by that point the band had amassed "an overabundance of material." Igor Cavalera remembered that it was a challenge to prevent the album from becoming "a gigantic jam that didn't turn into actual songs." He added: "It was quite a difficult record to finish. We did so much recording that the amount of stuff we had going on was quite crazy. We had to make sure not to let anything really special slip by. It was tricky to go through all of it, and it took a lot of time to find out what would work with what we were already writing."

According to Korn guitarist Brian Welch, in a November 1996 interview, his "own Bigger Muff guitar pedal" that he had initially modified and then used for his band was reused to his "great dismay" for recording the Roots album.

Roots represents a significant shift in direction for Sepultura. On several levels, the album reflects a concerted effort on the band's part to embrace its Brazilian heritage, with a heightened focus on Brazilian culture that is strikingly apparent in the music. Musically speaking, the inspiration for the shift was twofold: One was the desire to further experiment with both Latin and indigenous strains of the music of Brazil, including the percussive style of the Salvador, Bahia samba reggae group Olodum. Roots was also inspired by Korn's self-titled debut, with its heavily down-tuned guitars.

Roots is a groove metal and nu metal album that incorporates strong elements of aforementioned nu metal, thrash metal, death metal, world music, various Brazilian musical styles (including Brazilian folk music), tribal music, and ambient field recordings. All of the songs on Roots draw from these styles, with the band often blending them in unconventional ways and at times super-imposing them onto one another through creative mixing and editing in post-production. Several songs feature Brazilian instrumentation that had up to that point never been used by a metal band (certainly not one of Sepultura's stature), and the album is peppered with ensemble percussion sections played by the band along with Carlinhos Brown.

Of the album's prominent Latin influence, Igor Cavalera told Nashville Scene:

I'd always wanted to do a little more stuff with a Latin feel, but it took until Chaos A.D. to realize how we could make that into something that wasn't too clichéd. That was always my fear. I'd been exposed to samba and the African Brazilian rhythms before I played the drums, and I'd always had a lot of caution about incorporating them in the right way, and not doing it for the sake of just having them there. It took us a lot of research and time to make sure that we did it in a way that felt completely natural. It wasn't just like "OK, we like this and it makes sense, so let's just do it." It took a lot to develop.

Disparate elements of Brazilian culture permeate every aspect of Roots, from the music to the lyrics to the artwork and visuals to the videos the band made for the songs "Roots Bloody Roots," "Attitude," and "Ratamahatta." The album cover features an indigenous man of the Karajá tribe taken from a 1990 banknote of the discontinued Brazilian cruzeiro, to which artist Michael Whelan added a locket with Sepultura's "tribal S" logo and a background of red roots.

Much of Roots references Brazilian culture, history, lore, and politics, either directly or indirectly. According to Max Cavalera, "Roots Bloody Roots" is "about believe in yourself, about be proud of your heritage, proud of where you come from. Really powerful but simple lyrics. So it's really about just be down with your own roots and believe in your roots". (In a 1996 MTV Europe clip, Max Cavalera explained the meaning behind the song as: "Don't give in. What you believe is for life, even if people try all the time to change you. The song is about 'don't let the bastards grind you down.'")

"Ratamahatta" is "a celebration of life in Brazil's favela slums, sung all in Portuguese, which tells the stories of people like Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) and Lampião, the leader of an early 1900s outlaw gang from north Brazil, whose head was put on public display after he was captured". "Ambush" is "a tribute to murdered South American rain-forest activist Chico Mendes". "Dictatorshit" addresses the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état. "Endangered Species" addresses environmental destruction.

"Cut Throat" is about Epic Records. (The last words in the song are "Enslavement, Pathetic, Ignorant, Corporations". This spells EPIC, the record company with which Sepultura had some trouble during their previous album, Chaos A.D.)

The lyrics to "Attitude" were co-written by Dana Wells, Max Cavalera's stepson, whose death (in part) led to the events which caused Max to leave the band. Dana also came up with the concept for the video for the song, featuring Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experts the Gracie family.

Since the release of Roots, there have been cases where other metal bands who are not of Western (i.e.: European or American) origin have combined metal with music from their own native regions, though none of those bands have reached the same level of visibility or commercial success that Sepultura achieved with Roots. Chthonic, for example, blend symphonic death metal with traditional Taiwanese music and mythology; Melechesh play black metal while drawing from Assyrian/Babylonian/Middle Eastern mythology and symbology; Tengger Cavalry combine metal with Mongolian throat singing and classical Chinese instrumentation in both electric and acoustic settings.

Speaking to Kerrang! in 2008, Max Cavalera looked back on Roots:

Roots came from a blurry dream I had about going to the rainforest. Wine may have been involved. In the end, when we actually went into the forest to record, it was unbelievable. The whole album was a huge personal journey for me, and as a Brazilian, it felt as an incredible achievement. Everyone was inspired and Igor was at the top of his game. The percussion was crazy and we worked with so many great musicians, in the end coming out with a 15-minutes drum jam that someone likened to a crazy Brazilian Pink Floyd. When we took the album to Roadrunner they loved it except for the title. They thought it would sound like a Bob Marley tribute album. We explained it to them, and thankfully they got it.

As for the Xavantes, both their leader at the time of the band's visit (Cipassé) and Pappiani agree that Roots helped the tribe gain some visibility, to the point that people would actually identify them as Xavantes instead of just calling them "indigenous people". Pappiani noticed an increase in people's interest for information on the tribe and their music.

On March 25, 2021, French heavy metal band Gojira released the single "Amazonia", a song about anti-deforestation of the Amazon and the protection of Brazilian indigenous peoples' rights. Shortly after its release on April 15, frontman Joe Duplantier in an interview with Blabbermouth.net was asked his thoughts about comparing Amazonia to Sepultura, to which he said:

I go, "Yup." And it's a compliment, and there is no shame here. And we ripped them off, but we didn't do it on purpose. But we realized it right after. We were, like, "Oh, that sounds like SEPULTURA. Ahhh, whatever." It's a tribute to Sepultura — how about that? It's about Brazil. It's about the Amazon. It's tribal.

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Max Cavalera, except where noted; all music is composed by Sepultura, except where noted.

Disc 1

1. "Roots Bloody Roots" 3:32
2. "Attitude" Max Cavalera/Dana Wells     4:15
3. "Cut-Throat" 2:44
4. "Ratamahatta" (featuring David Silveria and Carlinhos Brown) Sepultura/Carlinhos Brown 4:30
5. "Breed Apart" Andreas Kisser/Max Cavalera   4:01
6. "Straighthate" 5:21
7. "Spit" 2:45
8. "Lookaway" (featuring Jonathan Davis, Mike Patton and DJ Lethal) Jonathan Davis
9. SepulturaDJ Lethal   5:26
10. "Dusted" Andreas Kisser Andreas Kisser 4:03
11. "Born Stubborn" 4:07
12. "Jasco" (instrumental) Andreas Kisser 1:57
13. "Itsári" (instrumental) Xavante Tribe/Sepultura   4:48
14. Ambush" 4:39
15. "Endangered Species" 5:19
16. "Dictatorshit" 1:26
17. "Canyon Jam" (hidden track) (instrumental) 13:16

Total length: 72:08

Disc 2

1. Procreation (of the Wicked) 03:39  
2. Mine 06:25  
3. War (Bob Marley cover) 06:40  
4. Lookaway (Master Vibe Mix) 05:36  
5. Mine (Andy Wallace Mix) 07:58  
6. Dusted (Demo) 04:27  
7. Roots Bloody Roots (Demo) 03:31  
8. R.D.P. (Demo) 01:15  
9. Untitled (Demo) 04:14  
10. Attitude (Live) 05:37  
11. Roots Bloody Roots (Megawatt Mix 1) 04:01  
12. Roots Bloody Roots (Megawatt Mix 2) 04:09  

Time:  57:32  

Recording information:

Co-produced by Sepultura.

Recorded at Indigo Ranch, Malibu, CA.

Mixed at Soundtrack Studios, New York, NY.

"Itsári" recorded live in the "Aldeia Pimentel Barbosa", home of the Xavantes tribe, located in Mato Grosso, Brasil, on 5 November 1995.

Sepultura "Territory (Single & Video)"

"Territory" is Sepultura's fifth official single, and the second of the three to be taken from the album Chaos A.D., released in 1993. Like most of the band's singles, the song is one of the band's best-known songs and remains a concert staple to this day.

The artwork for the single is not easily discernible. It depicts a monument of some sort. The image is overlaid with the band's thorned 'S' logo.

"Territory" saw relatively few variations upon its release compared to the other singles from the album. The CD came in a standard slimline jewel case, rather than the usual digipak, and only one version was released. The single was also released as a 12" vinyl record, with only "Polícia" as a B-side.

A music video was filmed for the single which features the band playing and walking through the desert, often daubed in Dead Sea mud, intercut with footage of slums and favelas and footage from Israel and the Palestinian territory: armed Israeli soldiers and policemen, pro-Palestinian graffiti, Bedouins, Haredim kissing the stones of the Western Wall, pages of the Qur'an and the Hebrew Bible and Christian ceremonies in the Old City of Jerusalem. It ends with a newspaper clip about the signing of the Oslo Accords and a walking soldier.

The video, directed by Paul Rachman, was released to TV stations in October 1993. It won the International Viewer's Choice award for best video (Brazil) at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. In 1995 it was released on the VHS Third World Chaos, which was re-released on DVD in 2002 as part of Chaos DVD.

Track listing

1. "Territory" (from the album Chaos A.D.)
2. "Polícia" (Titãs cover, also available on digipak and Brazilian pressings of Chaos A.D. and the compilation Blood-Rooted)
3. "Biotech Is Godzilla" (from the album Chaos A.D.)

CD single, barcode not on backside of the cover but on the small stripe

Track 2 (cover) was previously unreleased

Sepultura "Chaos A.D. (2017, 2CD, Roadrunner Records, Digisleeve, Reissue, Remastered R2 562036 / 081227934255)"

Chaos A.D. is the fifth studio album by Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura, released on October 19, 1993, by Roadrunner Records. Although the album is considered thrash metal, it saw a stylistic departure from the band's earlier style, by incorporating a new groove metal sound.

The band considered a number of producers, including avant-garde jazz composer John Zorn and Al Jourgensen of industrial metal pioneers Ministry. They ultimately chose Andy Wallace, who had previously mixed Arise. Sepultura wanted isolation, and for that Andy Wallace suggested Rockfield Studios, located in South Wales.

"Kaiowas" was recorded live among the ruins of the medieval castle of Chepstow. It was an entirely acoustic track, with Andreas Kisser and Max Cavalera on the guitars and brother-drummer Igor Cavalera and bassist Paulo Jr. handling the percussion duties. When they recorded "Kaiowas", the quartet never even considered playing the track live, because they thought it would be too difficult to recreate the drumming on stage. They changed their minds after seeing a video of the American band Neurosis: "We saw in that live video that the Neurosis guys put down their guitars and everybody started to play the drums on stage", lead guitarist Andreas remembers. "We decided to try the same thing. We rehearsed it once and it was wonderful. We haven't stopped playing the song live since."

During Chaos A.D. recording sessions, Sepultura recorded a number of covers: "The Hunt", from New Model Army, "Polícia", from Titãs, "Inhuman Nature", from the American hardcore punk band Final Conflict, and "Crucificados pelo Sistema", from Brazilian Ratos de Porão. Igor was a New Model Army fan and he convinced the other band members to include "The Hunt" on the record. Paulo joked that the money of the LP would go straight to new dentures for Justin Sullivan, the toothless singer of New Model Army. The latter 3 covers would be included as B-sides and also on the compilation Blood-Rooted. "Polícia" is also included as a bonus track on the Brazilian edition of the album.

Out of the boredom of playing the Arise songs for two years straight and concerned about the threat of musically stagnating, Sepultura pushed the envelope on Chaos A.D. The first track, "Refuse/Resist", revealed the band's new musical direction: slower, with more emphasis on groove than speed. The song starts with the heartbeat of Max's then-unborn first son, Zyon, followed by some Afro-Brazilian drumming reminiscent of Salvador, Bahia samba-reggae group Olodum. About the track's introductory guitar riff, Max acknowledged that it "could have been created by a death metal band." Chaos A.D. was their first record to utilize some lower guitar tunings. Half of the songs in the album are tuned down to D standard, except for "Kaiowas" which is in drop C# tuning.

Diversity was the key to Chaos A.D., revealed Max Cavalera. "Biotech Is Godzilla" was "pure hardcore", according to the elder Cavalera. "Nomad", with its characteristically slow riffs, was described by lead guitarist Andreas Kisser as their answer to Metallica's "Sad but True". The album also featured Sepultura's first all-acoustic incursion, "Kaiowas". "It's like a mixture of Led Zeppelin, Sonic Youth and Olodum", said Max of that particular song. Dazed & Confused magazine stated the album "signalled a move away from the [Sepultura]'s thrash roots, focusing on slower, industrial grooves." In the book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists, author Joel McIver stated the album showed a "movement away from extreme metal to a more punk sound" with a stronger focus on "feel and groove". McIver went on to state that the album showed the first signs of the groove metal genre that Sepultura would apply by the mid-1990s. In Ian Christe's book Sound of the Beast, he credits Chaos A.D, along with American heavy metal band Pantera for developing the death metal-influenced music of groove metal that would later influence other artists in the 90s.

The lyrics of "Refuse/Resist" mention "tanks on the streets, confronting police, bleeding the plebs." Its chorus ("Refuse! Resist!") resembles a protest march slogan, and when released as a single featured a photograph of a South Korean student rushing at Seoul's riot police contingent while holding a Molotov cocktail. The next song, "Territory", dealt with the conflict between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. "Slave New World" — with its lyrics co-written by Biohazard bassist Evan Seinfeld — was a protest against censorship.

Massacres were a major part of Chaos A.D.'s overall theme. "Amen" tackled the massacre of David Koresh's followers in Waco, Texas. "Manifest" had a faux-radio report of the Carandiru massacre, and "Kaiowas" was made in honor of a Brazilian Indian tribe that committed collective suicide in protest against the government that wanted to drive them off the land of their ancestors. "Nomad", written by Andreas, talked about people expelled from their homelands.

In 2008, speaking to Kerrang!, Max Cavalera remembered: "This certainly got in touch with the dark side of Sepultura. "Refuse/Resist" is an anti-police song – a real piece of anarchy. You could call the album riot music. It was full of heavy shit and some of it was risky, but it was just where we were coming from at the time. "Manifest" is also very close to me. That's about a massacre of prisoners by police at a jail in São Paulo. One hundred and eleven prisoners were killed, and one of my friends was there and took pictures of it all, one of which we used in the artwork."

On Chaos A.D., Sepultura honored one of their biggest idols, Jello Biafra. Max had called Biafra asking him to contribute to the album with a song about the growing neo-Nazi movement. "I asked for something like 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off - Part 2'", remembers Max, referring to the anti-Nazi song "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" by the Dead Kennedys. But Biafra wasn't interested in recycling old ideas and he suggested a song called "Biotech Is Godzilla", that he had written during his visit to Eco '92, a world conference about ecology organized in Rio de Janeiro. "Jello spent ten minutes explaining me his crazy theories", said Max to Anamaria G. of Bizz magazine, "he said that George Bush had sent a group of scientists to Brazil to test germs and bacteria on human beings and use them as guinea pigs. The lyrics claim that biotechnology created AIDS. But they don't say that technology is bad, just that it's in the wrong hands."

By the time Chaos A.D. arrived, Sepultura were the biggest act of Roadrunner's roster. Aware of the band's increasing popularity, the label spent nearly $1 million on a "marketing blitz" which quickly guaranteed them silver and gold records in Belgium, France and the UK. The group also signed an exclusive distribution deal with a major label, Epic Records, home of Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine. This deal eventually went sour: Epic paid little attention to Sepultura, preferring to invest in Fight and Prong, groups that were, in the long run, less successful than the Brazilians.

The Chaos A.D. tour kickstarted on October 23, 1993 with British doom metal band Paradise Lost as the opening act. The tour went well, except for an incident where Berlin's police received a false tip claiming that Sepultura's tour bus was loaded with a major cocaine shipment. Enraged by the unjust search and seizure procedure, Max re-wrote "Antichrist", from their 1985 Bestial Devastation EP, as "Anti-Cop", and then the band proceeded in playing the song live throughout the tour (a recorded version is available on the combined re-release of Bestial Devastation/Morbid Visions and The Roots of Sepultura albums).

While touring Europe, rumors floated around that Sepultura would be part of the latest edition of Brazil's Hollywood Rock music festival, taking place in January 1994. The event would happen simultaneously on São Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro. Chaos A.D. has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.

The North American leg, which was co-headlined by Pantera, coincided with the 1994 FIFA World Cup, with the concert in Irvine, California, taking place on July 17, a few hours after the tournament final, in nearby Pasadena. Sepultura, whose members attended the match, took to the stage decorated in the Brazilian colors in celebration of the national team's triumph in the tournament.

Tracklist:

Disc 1

1. Refuse/Resist 03:19  
2. Territory 04:47  
3. Slave New World 02:54  
4. Amen 04:27  
5. Kaiowas 03:43  
6. Propaganda 03:32   
7. Biotech Is Godzilla 01:52  
8. Nomad 04:58  
9. We Who Are Not as Others 03:42   
10. Manifest 04:46  
11. The Hunt (New Model Army cover) 03:59  
12. Clenched Fist 04:57  

Time:   46:56

 

Disc 2

1. Chaos B.C. 05:12  
2. Symptom of the Universe (Black Sabbath cover) 04:15  
3. Inhuman Nature (Final Conflict cover) 03:12
4. Polícia (Titãs cover) 01:48   
5. Crucificados pelo Sistema (Ratos de Porão cover) 01:04
6. Clenched Fist 01:52  
7. Propaganda 03:24
8. Clenched Fist 02:52
9. Refuse/Resist (live) 03:50  
10. Slave New World (live) 03:06  
11. Propaganda (live) 03:25  
12. Beneath the Remains/Escape to the Void (live) 03:48  
13. Kaiowas (live) 02:18  
14. Clenched Fist (live) 03:38  
15. Biotech Is Godzilla (live) 02:08  
16. Territory (live) 04:48  
17. Amen/Inner Self (live) 08:43  

Time:  59:23  

Issued in a 6-panel digisleeve, with 16-page booklet.

Sticker over shrinkwrap:

"Newly remastered & expanded for the first time

Includes

Refuse/Resist

Territory

Slave New World

Plus bonus disc of rare & unreleased demos, cover versions & live tracks"

Recording information:

Co-produced by Sepultura.

Recorded at Rockfield Studios, S. Wales, England.

"Kaiowas" recorded at Chepstow Castle, S. Wales, England.

Mixed at the Wool Hall Recording Studios, Bath, England.

Sepultura "Arise (Single & Video)"

"Arise" is Sepultura's first official single, as well as the first of three to be released from the album of the same name.

The song is one of Sepultura's best known songs and is sometimes called a thrash metal masterpiece. Max Cavalera states that it's his favorite Sepultura song and he's especially proud of it.

At this stage in their career the band had recorded little material to be used as B-sides, which is why the Arise singles are so similar. B-sides on this single were taken from the Under Siege (Live in Barcelona) VHS.

A controversial music video for the song was produced and can be found on the VHS release Third World Chaos, which was later released on DVD as part of Chaos DVD. The video was filmed in Death Valley and features footage of the band playing during daylight, mixed with images of a Christ-like figure in a gas mask, hung on a cross. The video was banned by MTV America due to its apocalyptic religious imagery.

American deathcore band Crematorium on Various Cover Sessions EP, 1997– also released on the World of Pain: A Tribute to Sepultura CD, 1999.

Swedish death metal and thrash metal band The Crown on Sepultural Feast: A Tribute to Sepultura CD, 1998.

Finnish extreme power metal band Kalmah on the Japanese and UK editions of their fifth album, For the Revolution, 2008.

Indonesian death metal band DeadSquad covered the track on their debut album Horror Vision, 2009.

American thrash metal band Havok included their cover on Point of No Return EP, 2012.

Belgian death metal Aborted released their version on Scriptures of the Dead EP, 2014.

Track listing

1. "Arise" (album version)
2. "Inner Self" (from Under Siege (Live in Barcelona))
3. "Troops of Doom" (from Under Siege (Live in Barcelona))

Single off of the album "Arise". Arise was created as a music video.

Live tracks from the home video "Under Siege" (Live in Barcelona)".

Recording information:

Tracks 2-3 recorded live in Barcelona, Spain on May 31, 1991.

Sentimen Beltza "Pagopean (Limited Edition)"

Pagopean es el quinto album de la banda española de Black Metal, Sentimen Beltza, editado en marzo de 2015.

Tracklist:

1. Bizitza eta heriotzaren arteko etengabeko borrokaren erdian 09:46  
2. Errealitatea eta denbora 08:39  
3. Pagopean (Beleen abesti isil bat) 05:05
4. In a Primeval Forest 05:35  
5. Antuzanoko beleak 08:06  
6. Su bortitza 05:11  
7. Zuhaitz usteldu bat 09:19  

Time:   51:41  

All music and lyrics by Sentimen Beltza.

Released by Altare Productions and Obscure Abhorrence Productions.

Recording information:

Pagopean was recorded and mixed at Spitako Studios in summer of 2014 by Oindurth SaVinitta.