progshine While the Metal world stupidly keeps trying to bash every single Sepultura album after Max left the band (even though the same metalheads come back to check one album after another), the band continues their own path at their own pace and continue to deliver us interesting metal albums.

The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart (2013) is a hell of a good album that requires attention while listening to it but that in the end delivers some real good music that, as usual with Sepultura, surpasses the barriers of metal (good for them, cause metalheads tend to be a bunch of no-brains).

Are you a widower of Max and Igor? Just go and check Soulfly or Cavalera Conspiracy. Stop trying to have Sepultura 'back to its best form', that's not going to happen. If you can't realise that after almost 20 years you must have something missing in your head, don't you think?

UMUR "The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart" is the 13th full-length studio album by Brazilian thrash metal act Sepultura. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in October 2013. Sepultura´s career has been quite an interesting and at times bumpy ride. From underground cult fame in the eighties, to international acclaim and commercial success in the early- to mid nineties, culminating in the ugly split with lead vocalist/guitars Max Cavalera in 1997. The quality of the band´s output since then have been a bit up and down, but there is no doubt that Max Cavalera´s departure from the band was also a fan divider and that has affected both fans and critic´s opinions on all post-Max Cavalera Sepultura releases.

While Sepultura played thrash metal up until the early nineties, they began playing a more alternative style of metal already before Max Cavalera left the band, and many of the albums with his replacement Derrick Green, have featured a sound that lean more towards alternative metal than towards their original thrash metal sound. From "Dante XXI (2005)" and onwards Sepultura have begun to incorporate more and more thrash metal elements to their music again and that trend continues on "The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart", where the thrash metal elements are dominant and the alternative metal elements few and far between (most prominent in "Grief" and in the Chico Science & Nação Zumbi cover "Da Lama ao Caos"). Harsh thrashy riffing, aggressive shouting (and distorted) vocals and pounding drumming (spiced up with some tribal percussion) are the main ingredients of the music.

Producer Ross Robinson, who produced "Roots (1996)", makes a return and is credited for producing "The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart". There´s been a lineup change since "Kairos (2011)" as Eloy Casagrande replaces Jean Dolabella on the drums. Casagrande is a skilled drummer and definitely a breath of fresh air. I don´t know if that is why this album sounds so intense and passionate or if Ross Robinson somehow lifted them to a higher level, but "The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart" is quite a positive surprise. The material is well written and relatively memorable, the musicianship is on a high level and the sound production is powerful. "The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart" is inspired by the 1927 film "Metropolis" (Fritz Lang) although the album is not as such a concept album. The album shares the dark and dystopian atmosphere of the film though and the focus on a more dark sound suits Sepultura well. Therefore "Da Lama ao Caos" feels like the odd track out on the album and an anticlimatic close to the album, with it´s alternative metal sound.

Although not everything on the album is great, I still think that "The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart" is the best album the band have released post-Max Cavalera. It´s the first album with Derrick Green that has really pulled me in. And that´s not because of Green´s vocals which are pretty standard to my ears. Here they are even distorted/processed a large portion of the time, which is a bit of a shame. It´s the songwriting and the sound production that take the prize here and elevate Sepultura to a higher level than they have been on for years. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

Kev Rowland The full title of the latest album by the Brazilians is ‘The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands must be the Heart’. So now you know. The very first thing one notices about this album is the drumming, as it is incredibly powerful and definitely provides an incredible edge that allows the band to bring forth brutality that probably hasn’t be heard from them in twenty years. Step forward Eloy Casagrande, whose debut album this is with the band. Mind you, finding out the Dave Lombardo was in the area and was going to guest on one song with him might have provided some additional incentive! The album was recorded with renowned producer Ross Robinson (Korn, Machine Head, Fear Factory), who worked with Sepultura on the amazing ‘Roots’, and co-produced by Steve Evetts (The Dillinger Escape Plan, Symphony X, Incantation), who previously worked on ‘Roorback’, the ‘Revolusongs’ EP and ‘Nation’. So there appears to have been a definite plan in moving back to their earlier sound, and certainly this has come out in the way that the vocals have been treated which in many ways have been pushed back onto the mix to allow the guitars and drums to really gain prominence.

Eloy and Dave worked together to provide some tribal drum patterns that reminds one of ‘Roots’, but in many ways it is the early albums that comes to mind when playing this. Artwork is also by a local Brazilian artist, Alexandre Wagner, so it again there is the feeling that although there isn’t a Cavalera in the band these days it is all about going right back to where Andreas and Paulo were when they started this journey all those years ago. To my ears this is easily the most consistent and brutal album since ‘Roots’ and hopefully the sign of more great material to come.