Sepultura - Dante XXI
SPV Records - SPV 99812 CD - 2006
By Philip Whitehouse
This album should serve as a wake-up call to all those who have cruelly ignored
Sepultura's output since Max Cavalera's departure. After all, Max's own output has shown gradually diminishing creative returns due to his obsession with cramming as many different styles of world music into one album as possible, while
Sepultura have, with Derrick Green, carried on cranking out powerful music.
Dante XXI is the peak of
Sepultura's post-Max career, and their most frantic, thrashy and hardcore-inflected release for years. Taking its inspiration from Dante Alighieri's epic poetic work 'The Divine Comedy', this album applies Alighieri's observations of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise and applies them to modern politics and religiosity, while sticking a few statements of personal intent in there ('Fighting On') while they're at it.
After the first of four ambient/instrumental intro tracks, the band comes charging out of the gate with 'Dark Wood Of Error', which largely sets out the stall for what is to come - Igor Cavalera's drumming is as rock-solid and pummelling as ever, but is also energised with thrash velocity. Andreas Kisser seems to have downtuned even further than usual, meaning the rapid palm-muting has a near seismic-intensity, and the downtempo tracks (the end of 'False', most of 'Fighting On') have a sludgey, suffocating feel. Orchestration is used to good effect too, adding an impressively epic feel to the likes of album highlight 'Ostia' and providing breaks from the near-relentless heaviosity via the four aforementioned instrumental tracks.
The forcefulness and clarity of purpose of the music on
Dante XXI really can't be overstated -
Sepultura have largely jettisoned the world music accoutrements they had relied upon for the last four albums or so, and pared down their sound to straightforward brutal thrash fused with occasional progressive stylistic elements. The result makes
Dante XXI sound like it comes from a fresh, reinvigorated band, and the resultant music finds Derrick Green slotting neatly into place as he never has before, his impassioned roars fitting perfectly with the dark, furious music. All in all, this is possibly
Sepultura's best work since
Morbid Visions.
9/10
UM's Review Rating Scale
Official Sepultura Website
Official SPV Revords Website
Since when did this become Sepultura's "classic" release?
I don't tend to bother stating things like 'in my opinion' in my reviews, since it should be pretty self-evident that a review is just that. 
