Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: Sepultura’s Arise Inducted Into the Hall of Fame
Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…
Our third-ever Decibel Hall of Fame was Sepultura’s Roots. Now, we’re not the least bit embarrassed of any of the now 133 entries in this series, but if you’re gonna launch an endeavor of this magnitude (keeping in mind the rules), no shit, you start the whole thing with Reign in Blood. We got that right. But Roots that early… well, let’s be straight: It’s just not Sepultura’s best album. It is appropriate for a cover that featured a member of Slipknot, sure, but as number three overall in the HOF, maybe not. We rectified our perceived wrong in the 100th issue with a Hall of Fame on Beneath the Remains, and we’re tripling down on Brazilian wax this month by honoring 1991’s Arise.
No-fucking-around spoiler alert: Arise is our favorite album of that year, and takes the top spot in our Top 30 Albums of 1991 feature, which also appears in the March issue. It’s the successor to Beneath the Remains, and Kevin Stewart-Panko’s story remembers a band excited to be on the verge of taking off. While BTR was an underground breakthrough—Sepultura’s first true international success—the stakes were raised considerably for Arise. As guitarist Andreas Kisser says, “We had everything that we always wanted to have in place: the whole structure, a manager, an original painting by Michael Whelan, more control, experience and trust from the label. We were living the dream.”
That led to a lot more label intervention than the band might have liked (check the sidebar on Monte Connor wresting the final mix from Scott Burns to Andy Wallace), but also generated a classic thrash rager with a sociopolitical bent, and multiple unfuckwithables like “Dead Embryonic Cells,” “Desperate Cry,” “Murder” and the title track. Check it out in the March issue.
The March 2016 issue of Decibel can be purchased here, and also features Megadeth, Carcass, and Publicist UK. But if you don’t just get a full subscription, you may be turned into dead embryonic cells.
