Archive Review: Sepultura’s Chaos A.D. (1993)

With Chaos A.D., Sepultura lay claim to being the baddest thrash outfit on the planet, delivering an album so awesomely full of monster riffs and rhythms that you’ll have to reinforce the floors and walls before playing it at a truly appropriate volume. Singer Max Cavalera’s muscular vocals are supported by a gifted trio of musicians, from the ringing guitars of six-string maniac Andreas Kisser to the rhythm section of bassist Paolo Jr. and drummer Igor Cavalera. Together, this Brazilian quartet make some of the toughest, meanest music to be found in any rock style today.

Underlying and often overshadowed by Sepultura’s powerful music is their lyrical subversion. Brazil’s best-known export are also musical freedom fighters, guerilla poets using their words as weapons to showcase the ills of a world gone mad. Thrash is a music made for political commentary, and Sepultura utilize it to its fullest, breathing passion and fire into songs like the apocalyptic “Refuse/Resist,” the violent “Manifest” or the haunting world-view of the Jello Biafra-penned “Biotech Is Godzilla.” 

The wonderful instrumental “Kaiowas,” inspired by a Brasilian Indian tribe who committed suicide rather than be oppressed by the powers of authority, provides a welcome break in the fury. Most of Chaos A.D. is appropriately unrelenting, however, with Andy Wallace’s fine production brightening the already sharp instrument that is Sepultura. If the band’s last album, Arise, was their big breakthrough, then Chaos A.D. is their destiny. (Roadrunner/Epic Records, released 1993)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, December 1993