I.N.R.I.

I definitely had to review this band at some point and since I just did Vulcano, I am going on a short Brazilian streak of reviews. First, Sarcofago has always been my favorite South American metal band. Their extreme approach to the music brought a lot of inspiration to most black metal bands in the 90s. Instead of following the other Brazilian bands, Sarcofago went into a different path, thus pushing the level of brutality even further. They followed the steps of Sodom, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Destruction and so on, like their country mates, but tried to rise the intensity of speed to the highest point. When I discovered this band, I couldn't believe how aggressive and brutal they sounded and looked like. After leaving Sepultura in 1985, "Wagner Antichrist" formed the band and they quickly started writing songs and ended up on the 1986 compilation "Warfare Noise I" of Cogumelo Records. Apparently, they got a record deal soon after and they unleashed the currently reviewed beast of a record to the unprepared audience for such violent 80s black metal.

The famous first full-length of Sarcofago "I.N.R.I." was released in 1987 and was probably the heaviest metal record published that year. Unsurprisingly short with its play time of 28 minutes, most of the tracks average the two or three minutes of length. Well, these guys played so fast that you don't even realize that the album is already over in less than half an hour. Anyway, despite those details, the album still has a bunch of interesting riffs other than just playing at 1000 mp/h. For instance, the iconic song of the band "Nightmare" features a good number of cool riffs, showing that they were still able to produce a dark atmosphere. Speaking of that, the amazing "Christ's Death" has one hell of an outro, with that slow riff followed by the bestial vocals of "Wagner Antichrist". However, the absolute highlight of this album on an overview is the machine gun drums of "D.D. Crazy". That kind of blast beat drumming was never heard before on a record and that guy just killed this shit. Other than that, the riffing that we can see in the self-titled track "I.N.R.I." has surely help building the traditional black metal riffing style in the early 90s. Although the songs are kind of similar to each other, with a few exceptions, the guitars are just too good to say something bad about them. The main goal of this record was basically to be evil, furious and fast.

Well, one could not expect much complexity in the music though, the speed at which they play doesn't mean that the music is complex at all. But this is far from being a priority for Sarcofago at this point of its existence, and not required either to be a killer release. Let's just say that the bands of that scene In Brazil at the time didn't have big budgets nor great studios to record. That being said, "I.N.R.I." doesn't even sound bad, at least to me. They did a pretty damn good job at mixing that album as the instruments are all audible at near perfection. I may even add that some people might prefer the sound on this album over other Brazilian releases such as Vulcano's "Bloody Vengeance" or "Morbid Visions" by Sepultura. I heard many people claiming that the latter albums sounded like crap, but personally, it's basically what is making the charm of all these records. Beside that, the lyrical department is what you should expect from such release at the time, but Sarcofago pushed the Satan's concept at a point that it's laughable. Tracks like "Ready to Fuck", Satanic Lust" or "Satanas" shows a bit what I am speaking about here. However, on the musical side that latter song has a main riff that is identical to Sodom's "The Conqueror". It's just played a little differently. I can't tell if it's a coincidence or not, but it came to no surprise and it displays their influences.

To close on a good manner, this album has the song "The Last Slaughter" and it contains an awesome mid-tempo passage within that blasting drums and wall of sound. For the fun of it, the outro is simply a sample of some kinds of circus music that end up with a toilet being flushed. Having said that, what a great way to tell how much I recommend such a classic 80s black metal album. This is arguably the best album from Brazil in that genre. Sarcofago even got better technically on the subsequent releases between 1989-1992. When it comes to old school extreme metal "I.N.R.I." is definitely of my best recommendation.

Favorite tracks:

Christ's Death
I.N.R.I.
Ready to Fuck
Satanic Lust