Nation

Ok, so I won't dispute that Sepultura's best work turns up in the late 80s and early 90s. I will however dispute that nothing interesting happened after Arise. Chaos A.D. is excellent, and Roots is a little flabby but not so bad really. Even Against is quite decent if you give it a chance. The real kicker is that Nation is lumped into Sepultura's slump-period. Nation is their best album of the post Max Cavalera era. Perhaps because it was released in the peak nu-metal early 00s, and perhaps because the cover art is a little worthy, a little earnest, a little too close to Metallica's St. Anger, a little System of a Down, metal fans either ignored or dismissed Nation.

Now, let's pretend someone gave you Nation on a cd-r in 2003, you wouldn't be able to say it's not Sepultura. It's got fast metal drumming, punk devil-may-care beats, rolling tom fills, tribal ornamentation, jagged Kisser riffs, and now being a one guitar band, you can hear the bass throbbing and growling under the riffage. Green's vocals are raspy and distorted and full of passion, and the album's production is really crisp and clear, all the better for appreciating Igor's drumming, which is as original as ever. Nation has everything you need from Sepultura, but just with more of a focus on their punk and hardcore influences. There is more of a jam vibe on Nation as opposed to Sepultura's pure metal albums, where technical riffs, and sweaty Brazilian blood and soil death metal, is the order of the day.

One Man Army, is a kind of tribute to New Model Army, and anti-government sentiment pervades Nation, along with strong metal as a community sentiment, and individual identity over group identity issues. Vox Populi announces,

No soul over body
No body without soul
No brain, no information
No vision, no protection
No church in politics
No profit in religion
No suffering without cost

The Ways of Faith, is a slower brooding number, with heavy riffs toward the end, and a rigid thumping drum beat, sometimes simple is better. In any event, you can't claim Nation isn't heavy, it's just heavy in a different way. Who Must Die? is an uptick in pace, and if they can do it here, you wish that they'd do it more often. As much as all the weird twists and turns on Nation are really fun and well-done and passionate, the one criticism of Nation is that the guys don't pull the trigger often enough. If the here and there injections of speed and directness were more regular, Nation would be a notch higher on the Sepultura album list. If you accept there are more tribal passages and hardcore influences than thrash or death metal influences, then you can enjoy Nation a lot. It does 2001-2002 really well. It wasn't 1993 in 2001, as much as it isn't 1993 now.

Sage is one of the best tracks on nation, and is what we need more of to get a very good early 00s Seputura instead of the good but slightly wandery version we actually get. There isn't a huge amount of nu-metal influence on Nation, it's just part of the Roots, Against era, and in fact when they really go for the kill, its better parts are better than those two previous albums. Tribe to a Nation is really excellent, and has the strongest death metal touch on Nation, and a verse drumbeat in a strange odd meter. Politricks, Human Cause, and Reject are all very heavy and threatening, and mark out the oddest aspect of Nation- it gets heavier as it goes on. If you give it a chance and give it a full hour at volume, you'll really be surprised by how many creative guitar sounds turn up and disappear, how many weird drum beats are squeezed into heavy riffs, how many cool tribal touches are threaded through, and how many songs do the unexpected, with only brief spoken word parts linking things together.

I'm not saying Nation is a great album, I'm just saying there's a lot of esotericism, weirdness, and creativity here, that Sepultura hasn't managed to produce since, despite having had some good albums here and there.

Great opener! "Sepulnation" creates a dense and sinister atmosphere, it possesses a high degree of intensity, sharp riffing and an eerie part with strange background vocals. Moreover, it seems to be a promising attempt to stop the identity crisis of the meandering formation in the post-Max times. The artwork with its archaic, communist charm and the almost eponymous title of the album point in the same direction. Is this the output which builds a bridge to their classic works, not in term of style, but in terms of quality?

A brief glance at my rating gives the answer: no, definitely not. The remaining songs show blatantly that the formation has no clue what it stands for. Expressionless outbursts like "Revolt" and "Human Cause" are manageable for the sorely afflicted listener. But the confusing mix of comparatively heavy riffs, whiny sections and industrial elements makes it hard to listen to the entire album. In particular the vocals go in the ditch. Derrick Green delivers many different pitches. He provides spoken word sections, he screams and shouts and he tries to create emotions while singing in a more or less melodic manner ("Saga", "Water"). Verdict: willing, but not able. I cannot identify an overarching goal of his performance. He fails on all fronts.

The same applies for the music. Psychedelic parts like those in "The Ways of Faith" are not total bullshit, yet this is not the music I want to hear when listening to an album of a thrash band. One can use these sounds when they match the concept. To make a hazardous comparison: Sepultura fail where Melechesh hit the bull's eye. The oriental ingredients of the latter constitute an integral component of their offering, while Sepultura expand their musical horizon at any price, but without any underlying strategy. The subdued "Uma Cura", to give but one example, wants to be one of many experimental highlights, but it is just to blame for being insubstantial and stupid.

The guitar work is not so bad, but whenever the band gets back to its metallic roots (I mean their first works, not the eponymous album), it seems as if the guys use the same grinding riff again and again. Is this still "Roots, Bloody Roots"? Not to mention the discreet tribal drumming that appears every now and then. Yet the song writing remains the main problem of the album. Songs like "Tribe to a Nation" just suck in view of their miserable one-tone-chorus. Instead of forging a comparatively solid album with a duration of 35 or 40 minutes, the guys disclose the fact that they are not able to write an adequate amount of strong material for a more or less excessive full-length. No doubt, Kisser and the other guys had taken the wrong pills while composing and recording this work. By the way, the production is okay, but this fact is totally irrelevant in view of these songs. Roughly speaking: one killer, 19 fillers (maybe with the exception of the slightly dramatic outro of the regular edition, which was co-written by a guy of Apocalyptica). Recommended only for those Brazilians who had fun while watching the semi-final of the Football World Cup in 2014.

Even though I'm only familiar with a few of the post-Cavalera Sepultura albums, I have to assume Nation is the absolute nadir of the band's output; I refuse to believe the band could have made something worse than this. I can't help but feel this is what Chaos A.D. sounds like to one of that album's detractors, that being a load of oversimplified, stupid and monotone noise that can't convey anything meaningful in a convincing way. This album is appalling; it's not incompetently performed but the band manages not to play anything inspired or ear-grabbing for its entire duration.

From start to finish this is a groove metal/hardcore album with a lot of influence from nu metal. Groove and hardcore influence isn't a bad thing in Sepultura's case, with the band having used it to great effect on Chaos A.D., but here they completely miss what made that album work. What ultimately ruins this album is that while this goes for a stripped down, simplistic punk approach like Chaos A.D. there is a distinct lack of passion and inspiration here, with every performance and every song coming across like loud noise made for the sake of making noise. The riffs are one such example - they are a series of very simple, droning grooves with some reliance on more rock-ish chord strums and chugs for some of the slower passages throughout the album. Every last bit of guitarwork on the album is boring, stale and unmemorable; this isn't helped by the overly slick, clean and evenly tracked guitar tone here which renders all the guitarwork sterile and lifeless. These ultimately drive the songs and as they're so played out and tired-sounding the songs end up being that as well.

The other performances aren't anything to write home about either - the drumming is mostly unremarkable save for some more tribal music-inspired fills here and there; only here it seems horribly out of place as the rest of the music is so dumb and lacking in anything interesting they don't match up to what the rest of the band is doing at all. The vocals are similar to the guitars, being loud for the sake of loud and conveying no aggression at all. Derrick Green's unchanging and monotone hardcore barks sound entirely passionless and unaggressive, with his voice coming across like a load of grating noise that ultimately means and accomplishes nothing as a result. The singing he does during the music’s softer moments isn't technically bad but again, conveys no emotion at all and feels contrived when used in music that shoots for tough guy angst.

The songs are uniformly redundant and aimless, with the band content to operate at one tempo and coast on one idea for the majority of a song with no change-ups to speak of. A majority of this album operates on mid-tempo grooving with a lot of focus on the big, simple messages in the lyrics and the equally big, simple grooves underneath the vocals. This is a problem when the grooves aren't hard-hitting or catchy at all and the lyrics, as simple as they are, are delivered so unconvincingly that they don't stick even after repeated listens, with their repetitious and simplistic nature only serving to be yet another idea that can be aimlessly recycled throughout a song. Any changes there may be usually don't pan out well; slower, chugging moments like the verses of 'Border Wars' are totally boring, the various acoustic guitar passages here are as aimless and repetitive as everything else here, annoying distortion filters only make Derrick's voice sound even weaker, and the string-laden closer 'Valtio' sounds melodramatic and once again leads to nothing. The lone fast numbers here 'Revolt' and 'Human Cause' are a pair of sub-minute crossover thrash songs that despite implying so much aggression still don't leave any sort of impact, falling far short of 'Biotech is Godzilla' or even 'Dictatorshit'. The politically charged lyrics on display throughout the album come across more as obvious preaching; even if you agree with the message the vocals are delivered so unconvincingly a listener would not want to be on board with them.

The passionless and uninspired performances are to blame for all of this album's failings, as in a similar fashion to punk rock music as simple as this needs to be backed with attitude, fire and vigour to have any impact, else it comes across as contrived and meaningless. The boring and redundant songs only further dampen the impact and make the music come across like effortless drivel, which only makes it get on the listener's nerves as the music doesn't inspire any real emotion beyond irritation that the band are still riding whatever dumb idea they had with no end in sight. This is a stupid album; it's 50 or so minutes of noisy angst that never amounts to anything but that. It doesn't hit hard like anything off Chaos A.D., instead the band simply put forth the music in a mechanical and lifeless fashion, akin to a propaganda speaker. It's full of nothing but irritating music that's devoid of any truly effective ideas, and even breaking it down into its constituent parts doesn't yield so much as a single good riff or vocal performance, let alone a tolerable passage. This is pointless and annoying music, don't bother with it.

Clamoring drums start Nation off on a roll. Everything is present in one of the worst albums on such a level: tough-guy attitude, imitated hoarse yelling akin to mid-era Fear Factory, and lofty bass supporting the sleek, repetitive groove riffs that go absolutely nowhere. It's Sepultura at their most pitiful moment. Roots was a travesty that tried to show the band mating ideas that didn't match and Against tried to do the same (with more respect). Those albums showed Sepultura in an identity crisis as it mixed percussion and folk traits outside of metal into the dick-posturing genre that is groove metal (heavily laced with nu-metal and the wrong type of hardcore).

Green's vocals are passionless cleans and barks done without any lasting power. It's a Burton Bell imitation that's as commanding as simple exhales. Coarse yelling like this is too primal to add anything to an album that attempts to be more straightforward and less unorthodox than the previous two abominations. It serves as nothing more than emotionless coating to the crude guitar riffs sapping whatever life it can out of the polished production job. "Border Wars" is a prime example of this beaten formula of downtuned rock riffs, some kind of sprinkled edginess in the solos, pounding drums, and hip nu-metal rhythms. "Sagas" is another bastardized attempt at tin tribal percussion and a bouncy tempo trying to desperately get some heads to bang. It instead just plays unaware of how shameful such a combination is committed to songwriting with no depth.

Instead of further subjecting itself to dissonance and unorthodox songwriting that backfires, Sepultura tries something else. They create songs that depend more on basic song structures. That means less experimentation and tribal elements on a level that breaks direction while keeping just varied enough to be classified as different songs. The problem is that as compositions, these songs are incompetent on every level. They are terrible excuses for groove metal with the degree of ineffectual riffs, uninspired vocals, and lack of bearing. By the very core, these songs define boring, unimaginative, and, as a result, they define unlistenable. This style sucks on its own, but Sepultura butchered it to a level where there is no way to enjoy anything about these songs.

It is unheard of how a band can take something that has proven to be marketable and turn it into something completely unlistenable. It's impossible to sit through any of these songs ever again. In life, this album will always be the antithesis of what can be appreciated in music. Now I know I hate Roots and Against, but fuck Nation. This is among the worst albums I've ever heard.

As I mentioned in my review of Against, I used to really like this album. It was my favourite Derrick Green-era Seps album by far. But now I'm not sure. Songs I really loved off of this album, Border Wars and One Man Army seem vapid and dull when I listen to them now, so I thought I'd give this a listen again and see what was what.

I still contend that Sepulnation is a fantastic song, I still love that song. With a great drumbeat and inspired, simplistic lyrics, it's still one of Sepultura's "greatest hits" in my opinion and still one of the shining lights of the Green era. Revolt is the now-mandatory short fast shock of a hardcore song which worked with Biotech is Godzilla and Dictatorshit, as well as the absolutely epic Reza off of Against, but compared to these 3 absolute wonders, this fails miserably. Although it's nothing too terrible, it simply passes you by with a notice and finishes too quickly and too abruptly. The demo version of the song included with this Special Edition is actually longer than the song itself, at about 3 minutes or so, so why did they feel the need to cut it MORE?

Border Wars and One Man Army are as mentioned, not bad but tediously boring after a while.. Vox Populi is more of the same whilst The Ways of Faith adds some brooding psychedelic guitar work, which just comes off as quite damn boring but at least it's a change. Uma Cura sounds like an uninspired version of Ratamahatta or Umbaraumba, with the generic Brazilian tribal percussion and some funk-style bass. Who Must Die has much of the same forced-Roots style, but is a bit more enjoyable.

Saga is actually quite enjoyable, a bit more up-tempo than the rest of this stuff and it isn't marred by the annoying bouts of Experimentation that marr the other songs because, although there is Experimentation, it actually bloody works! Tribe To A Nation, once you get past the really fucking annoying Reggae parts is still nothing to write home about although shows a bit of promise. Politricks is quite interesting, beign more of a brooding piece, relying on a near Spoken Word style of vocals from Jello Biafra where the Lyrics are the main focus of the song. Human Cause is another highlight of this album, despite only being about 50 seconds long. Reject is another highlight, this album definitely picks up the further you progress. You could almost say that the tracklisting is subconsciously linked to the whole Sepulnation concept by making you sit through several mind-numbingly boring tracks before giving you some rewards. Strength through endurance, and whatnot.

The song Water is quite a departure for Sepultura. It takes the slow, bare concept of Uma Cura and Who Must Die? to it's literal conclusion, akin to songs like Kaiowas and Itsari, but with vocals. The clean vocals are surprisingly good and work well, it's clear to see Green's other influences such as Reggae coming through in his delivery. Valtio is a great piece, although not really a song with a discernible structure. It's a symphonic Instrumental piece with the lads from Apocalyptica on Cello (who must've been absolutely chuffed seeing as they're all huge Sepultura fans) and it works really well. It could also be seen as a progression of Kamaitachi off of Against, and also a direct precursor to the grand Symphonic elements of Dante XXI.

The bonus songs are fairly interesting, but nothing matching anything by Max. Bela Lugosi's Dead is actually fairly enjoyable, despite being yet another brooding, slow piece. But the next songs, Annihilation and Rise Above, are definitely worth a mention. They are great and it would have been great if Sepultura had done more stuff like this on the actual album. This is all fairly fast, compared to the album which you've just listened through. Why couldn't they write some stuff like this, which is far faster, and is more enjoyable. The demo of Revolt is slower than the song which made the album, I think, but I definitely enjoy it more. It actually sounds like a live recording! The live version of Roots Bloody Roots was probably something of a revelation to the Seps fanbase, as this was the first opportunity to own Green singing Max-era songs live. It's not bad, but the guitars sound plain wrong and the bass seems a bit out of tune. Anyway, if you wanted Green-era live tracks, you'd be better off buying Live In Sao Paolo.

The problem here is not Derrick Green, far from it. Green puts in a commendable, if somewhat monotone, performance throughout and the addition of clean vocals at least shows some innovation on his part. It's the lack of riffs that Kisser is producing. Most of them are your standard mid-paced hardcore riffs mixed with a bit of Chaos AD/Roots, then adding some experimentation, for the sake of it. Sepultura have (quite literally) locked themselves into a groove on this one, this all follows the same basic formula (mostly) of Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Roots Experimentation/Solo-Chorus and it becomes tedious. The riffs used on these songs aren't actually that ba, but they're similar and used too bloody much. These songs could be cut down in length and this album could've far better if it was just bloody shorter.

Igor Cavalera puts in a commendable performance with some neat drum parts, the Intro to Sepulnation for example, but this is nothing compared to Chaos AD, Roots or even BTR/Arise. Paolo Jr. must have been giddy with excitement on this album though. You can actually fucking hear him! He has so many solo parts where it's just him and Igor, he must've been like a kid on Christmas! He puts in a really good performance, complementing the rest fo the band perfectly.

I should probably mention the production as well. It's good, nothing near as terrible to make it out to be. It's just your average modern-day Sepultura production, nothing too left-field or avant-garde. All the instruments are clearly audible and the only criticism I can think of is the guitar. The guitar tone isn't exactly Beneath The Remains, it's all a bit paper thin, but it still does it's job of making the music soudn heavy. Although not the kind of tone I would want for my band, it works nonetheless. The other thing I can see as being a pain would be the sound manipulation and effects. This album is drowned in strange effects, especially the Guitar and they can seem unnecessarily excessive at times, but nothing which would make me hate this album with a passion.

There is some interesting stuff on this album though, for example, the whole Sepulnation concept. The Spoken Word parts are quite nice and the idea of a musical "bed" underneath each of the quotes is an interesting. The lyrics are fairly intelligent and well thought-out, if not sometimes a bit average. The artwork is definitely something special, especially on this limited edition digipak version I have. It includes some beautiful Stalin-esque propaganda which is simply a joy to look at, and the whole red, yellow and black colour scheme is such a delight to the eyes. This has to be the best artwork Sepultura have ever had.

It's a shame that Sepultura didn't take this whole Nation concept further, onto Roorback and further, with maybe a song dedicated to the concept on Roorback or something. I also wish they'd been a bit more hands-on in their approach. Maybe they could've incorporated into their live shows a bit more, or even got the fan club to do something "revolutionary" to promote it. There is a whole mine of ideas which they could've used, but they didn't. They simply dropped the idea once the Nation tour was finished and buried it away never to be resurrected, moving onto Roorback without even a thought for the concept. Oh well, c'est la vie.

7/8 years on, and we are no closer to an independent Sepulnation (Well, not without a reunion with the Cavaleras, we aren't). This isn't a great loss, to be honest. I don't think Andreas Kisser is really fit to lead this band, never mind his own country. After listening to this album once again, I've noticed I have a vastly different view from the last time I listened to this. I thought this album trailed off after a while, the first time round that I heard it. But I now notice that this album goes in waves, some not bad songs to start off with, then a big tidal wave of mediocrity, then some more good songs at the end. Nation is not a terrible album by any stretch of the imagination, but it suffers from a lack of ideas. The ideas which are there (the experimentation factor) tend to be below par, considering the triumph that was Roots, and seem to be rehashed.

That said, the tribal experimentation has been toned down considerably from Roots and Against, and would be toned down even more on Roorback. This album depends on good riffs and simply doesn't have it. These too seem like reheated leftovers which are used way too much. These songs are too long and too identical.

Overall, this is a good concept, which is poorly executed and let down by lacklustre songwriting. In terms of Sepultura's back catalogue, I'd say leave this near the bottom. Buy all of the Max-era albums as well as A-Lex and Dante XXI first. If you're a fan of Chaos AD and Roots, there will be some songs on this you will like, such as Sepulnation or Saga. If you're one of those people who worship Morbid Visions/Bestial Devestation who believe Sepultura went downhill after 1986, then this won't convert you.

Although not essential listening, it is good to have to complete your collection, but only if it's cheap (Which is no doubtedly will be). This is not worth splashing out top dollar on, to get imported in or anything. I got this for £6 and it took me about 6 months of persuading and a slow day in Avalanche Records to make me buy this. It should be the same for you.

I was a big fan of Sepultura up to Roots. I loved everything they did and although Roots was definately not as good as an album like Arise, it at least has some quality in it. The fact of the matter is this: Sepultura are simply not the force they once were and have become terribly watered down like so many other great bands before them have done. In the same way Metallica went downhill, Sepultura have done the same, just in their own way. No longer are they the powerful thrash/death pioneers that they were on Beneath the Remains or Arise. All the band is now is a terribly boring mess of some of the most watered down "metal" with a terrible vocalist that attempts to scream. I really can't see how people can enjoy Derrick Green's vocals. They put me to sleep the first time I heard them. Unfortunately Sepultura seem to have decided to take a more basic route and it definately is not for the better.

The album's opener "Sepulnation" does nothing to grip the listener and displays a new weak sound in all aspects of the music. The production is just bad and adds to the boredom already displayed by the music. Bad riffs, chorus, and vocals already set up the entire album on the first song. Igor Cavalera's drumming is okay on this album but it is certainly nothing in comparison to Sepultura's old albums. Overall, Nation just simply drags on monotonously, doing nothing to impress the listener. Boring riffs with terrible guitar sound, bad scream vocals, and production that seems like it was made to put listeners to sleep all add up to make one hell of a boring album. Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed makes a guest appearance for thirty seconds on a pretty pointless one minute song called "Human Cause," doing nothing to make things more exciting. Some reggae dude also does vocals on "Tribe to a Nation" which just results in an awful mix between reggae and bad watered down hardcore/"metal." There is no reason to make anybody interested in listening to this album unless they are some pot-smoking liberal that accepts any music that talks about protesting as good music.

Nation is just another album that shows Sepultura will probably never be the band that they once were. This is too bad because they have made some classic albums in the past and yet have resulted in something so terribly boring. I don't know if this is because Max left the band to form Soulfly (which I think is even better this new Sepultura) but it doesn't matter because they most likely will not turn back to their previous ways. Nation will disappoint most fans of the band's older style. However it's also hard to see people into hardcore or even nu-metal getting into this album just because of how boring it is. Anyway, Nation is not reccomended unless you have no taste in music.