Sepultura’s Dante XXI: Legendary Thrash Metal Band Reclaims Greatness

For those who know me, know that I despise the heavy metal scene of today. In my opinion, it’s nothing more than cookie cutter bands that do nothing to stand out. The riffs are boring, the lyrics are clichÃ?©, and it’s hard to find anything that will stand out from the generic Metallica or Slayer clone. And what’s worse is when I turn on the TV to “Headbanger’s Ball” and see a Trivium video, and metal heads are calling this crap “The cutting edge of Metal!”

But I found a gem in the metal scene this year by a legendary Brazilian Thrash-Metal band known as Sepultura. To better understand where I’m coming from on this review, I think a little back-story would help about a bit. Sepultura has been responsible for some of the greatest releases in the Metal world, and has been dishing out great records since 1984 with the release of Bestial Devastation, and has since been releasing classics like “Arise” and “Chaos A.D.”

In 1996, vocalist Max Cavalera left the band to start a solo band known as Soulfly. And in 1998, vocalist Derrick Green replaced Cavalera. Since then, Sepultura has released some very mediocre releases that really haven’t had much success. But it’s 2006, and the band has since gotten their heads back on their shoulders and released “Dante XXI.”

Dante XXI isn’t really groundbreaking in any respect. But they took a basic formula and made something spectacular out of it. The lyrical content of Dante XXI is based on the legendary political satire The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri. And Andreas Kisser’s song writing really shines on this album. The riffs are simple, but they are catchy in a good way. Igor Cavalera’s drum playing is also quite spectacular.

You can see that the band has evolved from a simple Death-Metal band to a great Thrash-Groove band.Derrick Green has also proved himself as a worthy replacement for Max Cavalera by displaying a broad variety of vocal ranges. Proving that you don’t need a monotone voice to be in metal these days.

This record is almost perfect, arranged very well, with a band that has much chemistry together. The only problem with this record is the lack of media attention it’s getting. When crap like Trivium or Hatebreed is getting more media coverage than a wonderful album by a legendary band, it really does make me cringe. Especially when this album could easily sell, and is available in just about every record store expect Wal-Mart of course.

But if you really do want a good metal album that doesn’t sound like a generic Metallica or Slayer clone, you should pick this gem up, because you will be missing out on a brilliant and beautiful album like this. And it would be a huge blow to the metal world and its fans to find this in a bargain bin at some record store.