After playing songs from Arise for two consecutive years, Sepultura was worried about musical stagnation. That's how the Brazilian band broke the mold with Chaos AD , released on October 19, 1993.
The first track, “Refuse/Resist”, reveals the band's new musical direction: slower, with greater emphasis on groove than speed. There's the Afro-Brazilian percussion of Olodum . Not that the thrash/death metal riffs have been lost, but here it's the combination that makes it new. Metal with intrinsically connected Brazilian rhythms.
Diversity is key to Chaos AD. Max Cavalera commented, for example, that "Biotech Is Godzilla" is pure hardcore. "Nomad" was described by Andreas Kisser as a response to Metallica ." The band's first acoustic track, "Kaiowas," is "a mix of Led Zeppelin, Sonic Youth , and Olodum," Max said at the time of its release.
Dazed & Confused magazine wrote that the album “signals a departure from thrash roots, focusing on industrial grooves.” In the book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists , author Joel McIver said that Sepultura's sound “moved away from extreme metal and closer to a more punk sound.”
To achieve this, the band considered several producers before recording the album, including avant-garde jazz composer John Zorn and Al Jourgensen of Ministry . In the end, they chose Andy Wallace, who had mixed Arise .
Since the band wanted to record in isolation, Wallace suggested Rockfield Studios in Wales. This made it possible, for example, for the track "Kaiowas" to be recorded in the ruins of the medieval Chepstow Castle. On that track, Andreas Kisser and Max Cavalera played guitar, while Iggor and bassist Paulo Jr. handled percussion.
Andreas explains that they never thought they could play the track live, due to the difficulty of recreating the beats live. It was then that they watched a video of the band Neurosis . “We saw that video where the guys drop their guitars and everyone starts playing drums on stage. We decided to do the same thing. We rehearsed once and it was wonderful. We haven't stopped playing it live since then.”
If Roots deepened Sepultura's Brazilian roots, it was Chaos AD that took the first step. A watershed moment for the band's Cavalera era and an essential album for metal fans.
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