Because I thought the Vágtázó Halottkémek album I posted about a month ago might be getting a bit lonely, I am proud to post another ethno-metal classic. Replace VHK's Hungarian folk motifs and screeching heavy psych approach with clattery Brazilian percussion and pummeling thrash metal, and you've pretty much got Sepultura. Granted, metal fans won't need any introduction to Sepultura or this album, but it's no secret that soul/funk/jazz/psych fans and punk/metal fans don't usually swap tunes. Anyway, Roots ain't your typical metal album. It hits as hard as anything Metallica has ever recorded, and its sparse yet brutal approach to thrash at times even recalls Korn (which I suppose isn't necessarily a bad thing), but Sepultura also brings a well-thought out element of finesse to the extreme violence of their sonic palette. Many of the tunes here are almost dirge-like, abandoning the ferocious speed of Sepultura's earlier stuff for sludgy, heavier-than-heavy bombast. Max Cavalera's inquiry on "Attitude" ("Can you take it, can you take it, can you take it, can you take it??") is pretty valid in the face of such intense stuff, but when you, our cerebral musical taste-tester, hear the berimbau and tribal percussion of "Attitude" and the magnificent "Ratamahatta" (truly one of the best metal tunes of the 90's), you might start to wonder if maybe there isn't a seed of impressive eclecticism behind Sepultura's wall of uncompromising noise. Sure enough, Roots brings exactly what its title promises: an intense, personal, and totally hardcore interpretation of Brazil's native music. I'm not expecting that everyone's going to dig this, but give Roots a good listen and I'm sure you'll find that there are some excellently artistic gears grinding behind Sepultura's collective scowl.
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