Sepultura - Machine Messiah album review

Best Seps album in two decades

Cover Art for Sepultura - Machie Messiah

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There have been occasions in recent times when Sepultura appeared to be coasting. But not here. Machine Messiah is easily their best record since Max Cavalera quit the band in 1996.

It’s impassioned and adventurous. Conceptually, it confronts the way we are all accepting the loss of our humanity, and does it by opening up the musical horizons.

So while there’s enough thrash and power metal to satisfy bestial tastes, there’s also considerable progressive affectations, owing much to Iron Maiden, Rush and even Yes. The instrumental Iceberg Dances is the most obvious showcase for experimentation, but throughout the 10 tracks there’s a great deal to admire about Sepultura. Andreas Kisser’s sparking guitar playing is augmented by Derrick Green’s soaring, barking vocals. And even when the riffs are raging, as on I Am The Enemy and Silent Violence, the band aren’t afraid to take left-field turns.

Overall this is a masterful modern metal album.

Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021