SEPULTURA — Roots (review)

SEPULTURA — Roots album cover Album · 1996 · Alternative Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
The Angry Scotsman
This is Sepultura's biggest album, their claim to fame. This should not be a surprise since the band moved towards another genre with "Roots", the burgeoning Alternative Metal scene.

The band said they wanted to experiment more on this album, especially with the percussive sounds of Brazilian music. They also borrowed from nu metal, specifically Korn. This left me very unsure about how I would feel about this album. When I finally listened to it I was indeed a bit disappointed with Sepultura's "best work" (sales and accolade does not equate to good music as we know).

"Roots" has pretty much abandoned the rest of Sepultura's thrash metal days. The thrashiness and technicality has been replaced with very heavy, generic riffs and weird guitar sounds. "Roots" is a basically a Korn album but with better drumming and more intense vocals.

The album can be summed up perfectly with the opening track. Mid paced, super heavy, simple riffs, weird guitar noises and even that distinctive Korn bass sound. However, the tribal influenced drumming is cool sounding and Max's vocals are powerful. I will admit I actually do enjoy this song.

I do like some songs off this album, they are ironically the more experimental ones such as the very tribal sounding "Ratamahatta" the acoustic "Jasco" and "Itsari" (which was actually recorded with a Brazilian Indian tribe). The one thrashy song on the album, "Dictatorsh*t" is pretty good and packed with energy. However, even this is mucked up by muddy nu metal riffs and annoying "solos". The rest of the songs are all the same basic thing, a muddy mess.

I do give Sepultura credit for experimenting and wanting to make an album true to their hearts, something uniquely theirs and getting in touch with their heritage. That being said this is a poor album. This is a nu metal album with better drumming and more intense vocals. There are some good songs, and Igor's drumming really is superb, but overall this album sounds like a swamp.

If you are a fan of nu metal then this album may be worth a pick up, if you are not...you will most likely be disappointed.

Two Stars
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Pekka wrote:
more than 2 years ago
A perhaps interesting bit of information: In Finnish "Itsari" is a shortened expression for "itsemurha" = suicide.

I'll review this one at some point as well, I might throw in another half star.

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