UMUR
"Schizophrenia" is a full-length studio album release by Brazilian death/thrash metal act Cavalera. The album was released through Nuclear Blast in June 2024. It´s a full re-recording of Sepultura´s October 1987 sophomore full-length studio album "Schizophrenia" plus the new original track "Nightmares of Delirium", which closes the album. Normally when the Cavalera brothers work together, they work under the Cavalera Conspiracy monicker (who have released four full-length studio albums), but they opted to release a re-recorded version of Sepultura´s November 1986 "Morbid Visions" debut full-length studio album in July 2023 under the shortened Cavalera name. The Cavalera brothers also re-recorded Sepultura´s December 1985 "Bestial Devastation" EP (or more correctly Sepultura´s part of the "Bestial Devastation / Século XX" split with Overdose). The re-recorded EP was released on the same day the the re-recorded "Morbid Visions" album. Apparently they were so satisfied with the re-recording process that they have now also opted to re-record "Schizophrenia".
The early Sepultura recordings were raw, savage, and unpolished, which are usually descriptors I would praise, but in the case of the early Sepultura recordings I always felt that something was missing, so I´m one of those who think it´s a pretty good idea to release these re-recordings (and I´m usually very much in opposition when artists do re-recordings of full releases). In the case of "Schizophrenia" it´s interesting suddenly to be able to hear all the details of the riffs and drumming, which were buried in the original mess of a sound production. The Cavalera brothers have however not destroyed the album by packing it in a polished and overproduced sound production. They have respect for the original recording, so this is still a pretty raw and hard hitting sound.
"Schizophrenia" features several powerful, fast-paced, and technically well played thrash metal tracks, and it becomes more obvious when listening to the re-recorded version of the album, that Sepultura were actually closer to the sound they would achieve on "Beneath the Remains" (1989), than what the original recording revealed. Upon conclusion this re-recording of "Schizophrenia" will divide the waters as all re-recordings do, but as written above I´m pretty satisfied with the result, and I think a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.