Album review: Cavalera – Schizophrenia

By DAN SOUTHALL

BACK with another set of re-records from the so-called ‘classic’ era of Sepultura, Max and Igor Cavalera are still trying to prove something about artistic ownership in the modern world. Starting last year with Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions to a fair bit of acclaim, including from yours truly, here it feels they may have missed the mark and leaves questions to be asked.

If you are in any way familiar with the original Sepultura release then you have an idea of what is coming, just recorded cleaner, although the vocals are buried in reverb to the point of being difficult to hear or make sense of more than once. Why one of the most powerful and recognisable voices in heavy music chooses to do this is very confusing but also not the first time he has screwed the you know what when it was his turn to shine.

The instruments behind him are excellent. The drums are recorded so clean it feels like being in the studio with Igor as he was bashing it out. The guitars have an added buzzsaw element with the formula barely altered courtesy of whoever they roped in to play the leads (Travis Stone) and help with the retrospective nature of the album. When they are allowed to truly let loose is on the final track “Nightmares Of Delirium”, a track that has either been found or written while in the studio and you can feel the urgency in recording.

Yet the release of this album poses a question or two about the future of project Cavalera re-record. Where do they stop? They have tackled the beginning of the classic era, do they continue? Do they wait for Andreas and Paulo to finish wrapping up Sepultura proper and mend fences? If any of this goes ahead, will they fuck the vocal reverb off?

Questions aside, this album is as great an entry point to the Cavaleras’ work as it is to the excellent early harsh stylings of Sepultura, albums that will hopefully never be forgotten as the cornerstones of material they grew to be.

Get Schizophrenia on vinyl