UMUR "Quadra" is the 15th full-length studio album by Brazilian metal act Sepultura. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in February 2020. It´s the successor to "Machine Messiah" from 2017. As the case was on the predecessor Sepultura went to Sweden and worked with producer Jens Bogren. "Quadra" is a concept album based on the Quadrivium, which is the four subjects/arts of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

The band were very conscious in the way they composed tracks for the album, as they wanted to include three tracks of each of the four main styles, they believe Sepultura have produced on recent releases. Fast and aggressive thrash metal tracks, groove laden/percussive heavy tracks, semi-progressive tracks, and some more melodic oriented tracks, with Derrick Green treating the listener to his pleasant and powerful deep register clean vocals. Green´s performance on "Quadra" is strong and varied, and he is capable of both raw barking vocals, raw screaming (hardcore tinged) type vocals and the clean vocal variant described above. The rest of the band are of course also very skilled performers, and while I´ve already said it a thousand times, I have to mention again how exceptionally great a drummer Eloy Casagrande is. He is just the energy boost and creative rhythmic mind that Sepultura needed to elavate their music to new heights.

The material on "Quadra" is as you can imagine from the desription above quite varied and adventurous in nature. There is a musical red thread throuhgout the album though and it´s always audible that you´re listening to Sepultura. It´s just the most eclectic version of the band rearing their head here. I´m actually amazed how well they make all the different musical elements work within their sound and how they avoid making those elements sound like they were forced upon the songs. Semi-symphonic parts, fast technical harmony guitar/keyboard runs, middle eastern scales and creative rhythmic ideas, are just some of the elements which make up "Quadra". The closing track on the album "Fear, Pain, Chaos, Suffering" even features female clean vocals (performed by Brazilian singer Emmily Barreto)

"Quadra" is well produced, featuring a powerful and detailed sound production, which suits the material perfectly. I could maybe have wished for a slightly more organic drum tone, but that´s my subjective opinion, and it´s a minor issue. So upon conclusion "Quadra" is a high quality release by Sepultura. To those who found "Machine Messiah (2017)" to be a fresh sounding and eclectic release (which it definitely is), "Quadra" pushes the boundaries of Sepultura´s sound even further and this is a release for those who enjoy Sepultura when they are most adventurous and creative. So while there are fast thrashy parts and heavy grooves on the album, this is not a return to the the band´s sound of the late 80s/early 90s. Sepultura have moved on and they now utilize elements from all their previous releases and add new ones to the palet and as a result have created another strong release. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Kev Rowland After Max Cavalera left Sepultura I, and it must said, a great many other metalheads, felt the band lost their way somewhat and that Green just wasn’t the same type of frontman. After some years they also parted ways with Igor, bringing in Eloy Casagrande, and somewhat surprisingly for me they started to have some sort of resurrection. This started with 2013’s ‘The Mediator’ which took me somewhat by surprise, as it was easily the best album since ‘Roots’ and then in 2017 they produced ‘Machine Messiah’ which just blew me away. What on earth had happened to the band? They were back punching way above their weight producing metal with real power, heart and soul, and when I saw them on tour (supported by Death Angel!) I finally appreciated the force and presence of the guys.

It may have taken three years for them to come back with ‘Quadra’, but this time around it was an event people were waiting for as opposed to just another Sepultura album with Derrick Green on vocals, and if anything the guys have ramped it up again. They have even brought in some traditional percussion on “Capital Enslavement” – it will be nice for guest drummers to have more than just “Roots, Bloody Roots” to play along with at festivals. This is brutal groove thrash metal which looks back to their past but is also looking forward. This quartet have been together for 9 years now, with this being their third album together, and it shows. Paolo and Eloy are joined at the hip, while Eloy is being so incredibly free in his attack and adding real dynamics and aggression to the overall sound. Andreas Kisser has a monstrous deep and dark sound, and all power to producer Jens Bogren for capturing it. Then at the front there is Derrick Green. For many years he has suffered just by not being Max and was never really given the acclaim he should have been. That seemed to change virtually overnight with the release of the last album, which metalheads rightly raved over, and here he has dropped whatever weight was pulling back and he is a man possessed – it is amazing what confidence can do to a singer. It may have taken more than 20 years for the band to move on and create their own destiny, but they finally have and with ‘Machine Messiah’ to build on they are yet again taking their music to a whole new level.

This isn’t the band that gave us ‘Roots’, half of that line-up has departed, instead this is the band which has given us ‘Quadra’, for which we should all be grateful.

Kingcrimsonprog Ever since Max left, legions of fans have been turning up their noses at new Sepultura albums with a verve normally saved for Bailey-era Maiden or Ripper-era Priest, but with a duration equivalent only to Derris-era Helloween.

Every so often, I’d see someone who really liked a Green-era Sepultura album, or an album like Dante XXI get a positive review in a magazine, but on the whole, the vast majority of the public seem to have decided that the band was over when Max left. Me included until about 3-4 years ago, when I bought their Live In Sao Paulo DVD on a friend’s recommendation and slowly started collecting the studio albums with Derick.

When I started collecting Green-era albums, I felt almost like a bit of a weirdo collecting them though, as despite my one good friend’s fandom, I almost fear I am wasting my money on albums so ignored and dismissed by the public. 90% of the time if I read something about Sepultura it was about how great the olden days were, or about how unloved the latter days are.

Then something interesting happened. In 2017, Sepultura released Machine Messiah, and it seemed like every review, blog, facebook comment and stray discussion was positive. Not just ‘good for a modern Sepultura album’ but full on, unqualified praise. Good, period. Sepultura, the band who could do no right in the public’s eye, had released an album everyone if not liked, then at least agreed was good. Maybe it was the Dream Theater influenced ‘Iceberg Dances’ that swung the pendulum of public credibility? Who knows. The bottom line was Sepultura were praised again.

I don’t know if aforementioned praise has revitalised their confidence, or they just landed upon the perfect line-up and got better with each album featuring that line-up, or indeed if its just inexplicable lightning in a bottle no one could predict… but 2020’s Quadra is a masterpiece. Its not ‘good for a modern Sepultura album’ its more like ‘possibly the best Sepultura album.’ This is undeniable album-of-the-year material, but more than that. You know when you hear an album, and you just know its special. Crack The Skye? The Blackening? Endgame? Sometimes you just get that ‘I’m hearing something special’ feeling, you know it’s a classic even before time has passed.

Its damn tempting to say the secret to this album’s success is drummer Eloy Casagrande. The man is quite possibly the best drummer in the genre right now. He throws in latin and world music beats sure, it is Sepultura after all; but he can also Thrash like Dave Lombardo, prog out like Thomas Pridgen and bounce like John Otto. Just listen to drum-centric ‘Raging Void’ and then all out Thrasher ‘Isolation’ one after the other to see what I mean. The man is amazing.

Another thing that its tempting to attribute the albums startling quality to, is the bells and whistles. Its almost like a Fleshgod Apocalypse album at times with the God-Of-War style hell-choirs and apocalyptic sounds, guest female vocals and dynamic production job. The album sounds gigantic. It sounds like an actual giant. Just listen to album closer ‘Fear, Pain, Chaos Suffering’ to see what I mean. It sounds like a videogame boss-fight where the player faces off against a giant/titan/colossus/take your pick of huge thing.

For a while, I also thought the secret to this album was the lead guitar. OK, I like Andreas Kisser, and for the past few years I particularly liked his rhythm work on tracks like ‘Choke’ and ‘Sepulnation’ …but I’d never consider him an amazing guitarist. Over the years however, he has clearly been listening to a lot of prog metal and become a crazily good lead player. Some of the guitar solos and leads on this record are fantastic. So unique, so interesting, so invigorating. Just check out the instrumental ‘The Pentagram’ or the track which follows it ‘Auetem’ for solid guitar gold.

All those factors certainly contribute to what elevate this album to that ‘special’ place, but I guess the main factor is simply the song-writing and the flow. Every song is needed. Every song contributes something new, but works well against the previous material. There’s no filler, but there’s no repetition either. It strikes a hell of a balance.

Furthermore; Where some other Sepultura albums like Nation or Kairos are jumbled and too varied for their own good, and others like Roots and Against are bloated and in need of an editor, this album just feels like one perfect, consistent, cohesive, singular journey. Wikipedia states it is structured in four parts, to represent the four classical arts, but it really flows like one story from beginning to end. It starts out fast and mean as hell, turns groovy, gets varied then turns prog. Sort of a summary of their career over the course of one record.

Overall; this is one hell of an album. A monster against which all their future efforts will be judged. An amazing sequel to the lauded Machine Messiah and a new standard for quality for aging bands in general. If you had told me in 2005 that Sepultura would release an album this brilliant this late in the game, then I’d have been very sceptical, but I’ll be damned it seems they’ve only gone and released arguably one of the best albums in their whole career

(Ps. For context; as above, this is coming from someone who spent the better part of the last 20 years thinking this band essentially began and ended with Chaos AD and the first half of Roots, so you can trust this is not just blind fanboy devotion).