SEPULTURA — Quadra (review)

Album · 2020 · Thrash Metal

4/5 · 2020-10-22
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.