Disco de Sepultura: “Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation”

It is hard to get better than this album. It's pure guts and spirit.

I had a copy of Morbid Visions on the infamous Shark records release, complete with the "Carmina Burana" intro, but I'd had trouble hunting down a clean copy of Bestial Devastation. I found out that Roadrunner had re-released these, at the apex of Sepultura's popularity after Beneath the Remains, on a rainy night in Southern California. I'd walked a few miles down the highway and wandered into the record store I almost never went to, a mainstream one, by the shopping center. As it turned out, this was a good move, since they never got death metal customers and so would sell it for pennies. For $7.95 I walked away with a used copy of this album, took it home and put it on the stereo. I never stopped listening to it, although I've taken breaks to hear other albums, get some degrees, have a few jobs and a family.

This album is death metal perfection. It takes what made Slayer great, which is love of the expressive riff. Not just the cool riff, or the groovy riff, but a riff that sounds like the song topic. These songs are basically a chord progression with chromatic riffs built around each of its points, like an insane Qabbalah of occult tones. The riffs sound like the things they describe. Knitted together, each riff only makes sense after you've heard the next one and seen where the story goes. The result is an exuberant chaos yet the tightest loops you can imagine, everything fitting together without an ounce of fat. Underneath this, racing battledrums are coordinated like a small army of horsemen; above it, a gruff voice howls out a monotonic rhythm that makes each song catchy and frees up the guitars to raise hell. Together, the two albums form a continuous entity, although it has two voices. The first sounds more like guitarist/vocalist Wagner Antichrist's previous band, Sarcofago. The second sounds more like early Slayer, Possessed and Bathory, but with greater density of riff complexity. The result is pure metal beauty.

Like many great things, "this album is not for everyone." Musical purists will complain about the lack of scales or the haphazard use of dissonance in jumbled almost pure-noise solos. People from the newer metal genres will be unable to tap into the pure animal spirit and feral misanthropy of this album. For most people, it will simply be too abrasive without a sense of groove or drop like nu-metal has. People don't realize they're scared of this; they just back away. They retreat because it has a purity of spirit and strength of conviction, an intensity of imagination and a mythopoetic view of the world, that is simply not from this self-doubting materialistic and soulless modern time. As the rubble falls, this album rises above, and that's why I listen to it daily, or more frequently if I can.

"War!"

Every Sepultura fan should own this album. It's a true classic despite the bad production. Max Cavelera's vocals, and the fast paced guitars on here will drive you insane. The echoing drums are really good especially on Morbid Visions and War. The Bestial Devastation EP which is also on here has better prodution. It also includes a remake of the song Antichrist turned Anitcop which was recorded live at some time earlier in the bands career. All in all, a must have for anyone who loves moshing and headbanging. Sepultura rules.

This album in my opinion presents the best work from Sepultura. Chaotic and intricate in narrative, these songs make from simple riffs and pure noise an aura of evil that holds reality in suspense. Although some instrumentation is unsteady as a whole drumming and guitar work is creative and deliberate. Dramatic theming to songs make them unique, but raw spirit and concept is what draws these collections of power chords together. Riffs are of the faster Slayer-influenced style or in a minimalist muffled strumming rhythm playing form. Blasphemic lyrics tumble out in a death metal vocal of some sophistication considering the 1984-85 recording date on these albums. For those looking for a underground insight to the passion of this band, this album is great, but if Chaos A.D. is your thing pass it by.

In the mid 80's Sepultura, and several other South American bands became along with Bathory, Celtic Frost and Venom, the very roots of the style that would come to be called Black Metal. Sepultura, heavily influenced by Venom, Hellhammer, Cletic Frost, and punk, formed in Brazil to create a primitive thrash like assult, that was just as much black metal as Bathory. Indeed both bands early work could be very similar. Bathory however was inclined to be less thrashy and more punklike and noisy.

Sepultura are not however, death metal at this point. Nothing on Morbid Visions or Bestial Devotion could be even imagined to be death metal, it was not until a few years later, when they matured as musicians that they would delve into the death metal world. This release is purely what is now called blackened thrash.

I enjoy this album alot, it's really heavy, really crazy and really primitive, and oozes dark awe inspiring atmosphere. I can't suggest this enough to black metal fans to find out about the roots of an excellent band, and the very style.

How can the members of sepultura say this not a great piece of work. It shows raw musical creation poorly produced for the clear sound of what to come. The drumming is not like the rest of sepultura's later stuff because of a non-working drum set. This is the essance of what metal is about.