Sepultura - Celebrating the years!

August 9th 2015

Bloodstock Festival, UK

****

Sepultura are still delivering the goods live!!!

Bloodstock Festival

Sepultura **** (Main Stage) are celebrating thirty years of Sepultura in their current tour, but it's not quite right. In their is no original members of Sepultura in the bands line-up today. The two original and founding members Max and Igor Cavalera left the band after their hugely successful album 'Roots, Blood, Roots' and now play in Cavelera Conspiracy, a band that actually play more Sepultura songs... than Sepultura. Saying this Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr. and Andreas Kisser did join the band early on, but the modern Sepultura just seems like a completely different band.

This is not totally a bad thing, because the last two times I have seen this band I have completely have loved the music they have produced. Derrick Green who joined the band back in 1997 which is a massive eighteen years ago, is stronger than ever and has defined himself as a great frontman in his own right. You would laugh because Derrick has actually been in the band longer than Max Cavalera, the man a lot of Sepultura fans are still talking and waiting to rejoin the band. Max was only with Sepultura for twelve years. I actually have enjoyed the new line-up of Sepultura live, much more than I have liked what Max brings to the stage.

But I have to say the albums he has done with Cavelera Conspiracy are really strong and if he came back would he inject this spirit into Sepultura again and bring them to the level they actually should be at now headlining festivals. Sepultura 2015 really have great intensity and Andreas, Derrick and Paulo really have a great feel to them when they are performing live. I don't really know the drummer Eloy Casagrande who only joined four years ago, he is really good but doesn't have the stage presence of the other three. Opening with 'Troops of Doom' of their early Thrash album 'Schizophrenia', which is the first album I ever heard by the band and probably my favourite. It has great riffage to it and launches the set to a great early start.

They follow this up with 'Kairos' a track I don't know so well, but that seems to be have given a new life when performed live at Bloodstock. This shows that Sepultura are really a live act with great determination and impact. For most people the first ever album they heard was 'Chaos A.D.', an albuweenm that sold one hell of a lot of copies and produced classic performances back in their home country of Brazil at Rock in Rio and at the infamous Monsters of Rock in Donnington. These performances and this album made Sepultura a household name in the Metal industry and 'Propaganda' off this album is a great edition to the bands set. This also makes the crowd go crazy, and you can see that the doubters are loving every minute of it.

I think Sepultura are darker and more gritty than ever, and I think this works well to back up Derrick's vocal style. I think early albums 'Against, Nation' and 'Roorback' with Derrick on vocals didn't have this and where a little too clean for him. I think he really came into his own on 'A-Lex' and the last album 'The Mediator between head and hands must be the Heart', which were different to the other Sepultura albums and not loved by all... but were the ones where I feel Derrick really felt comfortable and at home with himself. I think Derrick puts something different into older songs like 'Inner Self, Arise' and the mega hit 'Refuse / Resist' and the power of his vocals and the way he does tribal drumming at the front of the stage really works.

Also Andreas Kisser is on point with the guitar work, which is spotless and totally incredible. So maybe after todays performance we will have Sepultura under our skins. I think the tribal aspects of the bands set, are not over done which I think Max sometimes does when he is performing with his band Soulfly or playing Sepultura songs. So it's nice to see that this brand of Sepultura know how to manage this and when they end the set with the new track 'The Vatican' which is one of the outstanding songs on 'The Mediator between head and hands must be the Heart' and the big 'Roots, Bloody, Roots' you know you have seen a band that will go down in history even though things are now different... sometimes change is not a bad thing and I look forward to seeing Sepultura again.