Kev Rowland When the pandemic hit Sepultura, like many other bands, found they had an album out and were unable to tour. To prevent themselves from going stir crazy they set up a weekly event where they could play music and talk to people from throughout the world, and this in turn led to them asking some friends to become involved and work with them on recording some old Sepultura tracks. So, David Ellefson, Scott Ian, Danko Jones, Devin Townsend, Matt Heafy and others recorded tracks from their own homes, and these were then mixed and mastered by Conrado Ruther. We don’t go back all the way to the beginning, which is somewhat of a shame, but even today singer Derrick Green is viewed by some as not being valid, even though he took on the role well over 20 years ago, so perhaps not too surprising. Therefore, we smartly side-step the first four albums, but we do get material from ‘Chaos A.D’ (strange to think that album is now nearly 30 years old) onwards.

While the band are blasting out older numbers, and obviously having fun alongside their guests, there is no doubt that the biggest issue here is the sound quality which is somewhat surprising given the way this was recorded. There is just too much space around the drums, and the bass often seems to go missing altogether, while the vocals also suffer from levels issues. This does make it feel incredibly raw, but also somewhat dated as it is just not what one expects from what is ostensibly a studio recording, and while the energy is great for the most part this feels very much like an opportunity missed. Interestingly, they do not include “Roots, Bloody Roots” which is noticeable by its absence, but they do bring in Phil Campbell for a romp through “Orgasmatron” which has made me appreciate the original that much more. Interesting in many ways, this is very much for fans only.

UMUR "Sepulquarta" is a live in the studio album release by Brazilian thrash/groove metal act Sepultura. The album was released through Nuclear Blast in August 2021. As the COVID-19 pandemic prevented Sepultura from touring extensively in support of the release of their 15th full-length studio album "Quadra" from February 2020, the band opted to work on another project while they were under lockdown along with the rest of the world.

The 15 tracks featured on "Sepulquarta" are songs from the band´s back catalogue (including the cover of "Orgasmatron" by Motörhead). All tracks were recorded during the months of April to December 2020. All parts were recorded at the musicans home studios, and in addition to Sepultura performing their parts, all tracks feature at least one guest musician. Some are prolific artists like Devin Townsend, Scott Ian, and Alex Skolnick, while others are less prolific or at least not as prolific as the mentioned artists. All parts are recorded live in the studio (I´m not 100% if all artists performed at the same time), and the sound quality is a bit raw and the volumes are not always perfectly matched (especially the vocals are at times a little low in the mix). You can clearly hear what is going on though, and which song is being played, so this is not a lo-fi sound production, it´s just not how you´d normally expect a studio recording to sound or a live album for that matter.

"Sepulquarta" features a good selection of tracks from Sepultura´s career and the tracklist is well balanced with both heavy groove oriented tracks, thrashy tracks, and some of their more exotic tribal influenced tracks like "Ratamahatta" and "Kaiowas". It all works really well, but I do wish the tracks would have featured stronger or at least more dominant guest performances. Neither David Ellefson, Phil Rind or Scott Ian for example make much of an impression on the songs they play on. In fact I didn´t notice their contributions at all. It´s of course a little different when the guest is a vocalist, but Derrick Green performs the majority of the vocals on the album, even on the songs which feature guest vocalists.

"Sepulquarta" is upon conclusion an interesting project, and it´s well worth a purchase just to hear the skillful performances of Sepultura (damn Eloy Casagrande is a great drummer). A few more contributions from the guests could have made the album even more interesting, but as it is, it´s a solid collection of Sepultura songs performed with a twist. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.