Metal Reviews

Okay, I must ask why so many people on this site slam this album. No, may be it's not thrash/death metal. But instead, it more-or-less pioneered a (at the time) totally new genre. The riffs were killer, Max put on his best vocal performance yet, and the drumming was awesome. Not to mention the album's historical significance and the fact that, even today, it's considered one of the greatest metal albums ever made.

It isn't like Sepultura intentionally helped start the nu-metal genre with this album, and hey, 80s Slayer and Metallica are also cited as influences for a lot of nu-metal bands.

And truthfully, Arise is overrated as hell IMO (some good songs, but also a lot of boring/plodding songs). So why do so many people here love that album but hate Chaos AD?

It sucks because its not death/thrash :twisted:

I find it to be all just mid-tempo blah... It tries to groove without many really good riffs.

EDIT: Though I left it in a corner just after I bought it several years ago and haven't listened since... So just for you, Seinfeld, I'll give it another listen tonight to see if I've come round to your point of view.

This is my favorite album. I think if Sepultura had stuck to their thrash, ahem, "Roots" They would have been equally slammed for lack of progression. Arise is a great album, but really Beneath The Remains Pt.2, and shows that the Seps were running low on things to do with thrash. So they took a big risk by slowing it down, and made a great metal album in the process. It's a lot better than many thrash bands insufferable attempts to slow down. You can hate me for this but Metallica's Black Album was average at best, and piss-poor at worst. That is all

Love this album, my favorite Sepultura.

I disagree on 2 points here:1st-the riffs were killer:true,from a nu metal fan's point of view,untrue from my point of view(check Destruction's Cracked Brain,Kreator's Exreme Agression,or Megadeths Peace Sells for killer riffs)
2nd-the drumming is awesome:it's okay imo(for awesome drumming check Rush's 2112,A Farewell to Kings or Moving Pictures,or for something more extreme,check Slayer's South of Heaven and Death's Symbolic)!

And last but not least,the fact that it pioneered a new genre(neo metal),is nothing to be proud of,imo!

Stub is completely correct.

Also, there are no bad songs on Arise. At best, one or two times they play the riffs a bit too much without changing to new ones.

I don't find anything "nu" in Chaos AD's riffs. They're too complex to be classified as "nu-metal riffs."

I don't think there are any bad songs on Arise, per see. But I agree with Mintrude that it was basically Beneath The Remains Part II. If you played, say, Mass Hypnosis and Subtraction for your average Joe, he/she probably wouldn't even know they were from two different albums. The fact of the matter is that, much like Slayer after Reign In Blood, Sepultura (after Arise) was pretty much maxed out in terms of high speed thrash metal and if they kept that sound for another album, it probably would have been little more than their own State Of Euphoria or So Far, So Good, So What (no offense to anybody who likes those two albums). Then everybody would have REALLY complained.

Chaos AD was one of my first albums ever, and remains special to me. Haven't played it for quite some time, though. Two years ago, I think. I find Arise very close to it in quality, can't really say which I like best.

Never really got into Sepultura that much, but Refuse/Resist kicks ass no matter what anyone has to say about it.

I agree with you here, definitely. In fact, I think the direction this album took had the potential to be a great one. If any high-speed band had the potential to slow right down and still produce great music I would have picked Sepultura as the most likely candidates. But to me the execution of Chaos AD just sounds slightly uninspired. Plus, the drumming here for me seems so pedestrian... On their earlier records Igor sounds basic, but so energetic. So much so that it's a major highlight for me. Here it just sounds quite cold and professional

I agree, Refuse/Resist is a great song.

3rd that and also Propaganda kicks a lot of ass too.