I'm someone who has admittedly never fully jumped on the Sepultura bandwagon...sure, Arise, Chaos, and Roots are genre classics, but I've found much of the Brazilians other releases to be competent yet overrated thrash/death metal hybrids that are still living off the acclaim of the three albums mentioned above. We all know of the split between the Cavalera brothers and Andreas Kisser, with the guitarist now the main guy driving the band along with vocalist Derrick Green, who has amazingly been in Sepultura for nearly 20 years and 8 studio albums. How time flies. Anyway, Machine Messiah is the bands latest Nuclear Blast release, and it's actually perhaps one of the strongest of the Green era, full of rampaging thrash tunes and even some alluring Brazilian & prog sounds, especially on the acrobatic "Phantom Self". The title track features some stellar clean vocals from Green, lots of atmosphere, and again, ethnic and prog rock flavors, but of course, it's the ripping thrash attack that most folks expect when digging into a Sepultura album, and you get plenty of that here, as on "I Am the Enemy", the symphonic "Sworn Oath", the manic instrumental "Iceberg Dances" (highlighted by some KILLER guitar work from Kisser), and the neck snapping "Silent Violence".
More diverse and eclectic than the last few Sepultura releases, Machine Messiah is chock full of surprises, much of it quite heavy, yet always thought provoking. If you basically gave up on the band when Max & Igor flew the coop, give this one a try, as there appears to be plenty of life left in this current incarnation.
See more about this release on our recent YouTube show!
Track Listing
01. Machine Messiah
02. I Am The Enemy
03. Phantom Self
04. Alethea
05. Iceberg Dances
06. Sworn Oath
07. Resistant Parasites
08. Silent Violence
09. Vandals Nest
10. Cyber God
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