Sepultura 'The Cloud of Unknowing' EP Review
- The Joker
- May 14
- 3 min read
Review By: The Joker
Sepultura is dying. Literally. It is the name of their farewell tour, Celebrating Life Through Death, the title of which is either the most metal phrase to ever adorn a tour bus whiteboard or the brainchild of a publicity stunt gone awry in a philosophy class. The way out of the business will be this four-track EP, recorded in ten days in Criteria Studios in Miami with Greyson Nekrutman, a twenty-three-year-old drummer who probably rocked up with some jazz records under his arm and the confidence that comes from a lifetime of never having had to think about decreasing numbers of tickets sold before a show.
And Greyson Nekrutman is, to cut to the chase, the whole reason behind this album. If it weren't for him, the rest of the band would just be sitting around, staring at each other and wondering how they are supposed to record without Max Cavalera. Instead, Andreas Kisser admits they had "nothing complete, just ideas" to start off the session, and the result is, strangely enough, one of their better records. They were recording in-between concerts. The young man brought fresh angles. The riffs flew freely. Andreas Soares produced the album, of course. In other words, it's got everything a metal record needs.
"No release date, no album title, no song names. We just wrote and played." That Andreas Kisser quote has got to be the epitome of artistic freedom for any musician who plays in an industry as pretentious and self-important as the metal one.
01 - All Souls Rising: Derrick Green read a book on the eighteenth-century Haitian slave rebellion and now we get to know about it. The orchestral sections aren't exactly subtle, nor was the rebellion itself, so this isn't much of an issue.
02 - Beyond the Dream: A power ballad with a clean vocal delivery. I am sure that, back in '93, telling you this would lead to the immediate tossing out of your copy of "Chaos A.D". And here it is, actually working, surprising and moving.
03 - Sacred Books: The place where jazz influences can be felt strongest. Here we see two musicians trying to come up with something new in ten days, and that becomes obvious in the best possible way.
04 - The Place: The story of immigrants assimilating so much to their host country that they start feeling alienated to their own culture. Starts with disappointment, ends with outrage, structurally echoing lyrics. Extremely topical.
The album name comes from a fourteenth-century mystical book in which it is stated that God cannot be reached through intellect, but only through love and ignorance. Yes, Sepultura decided to give their swan song the name of a medieval theological treatise. This either is a sign of deep artistic sincerity, or the ultimate way to tell journalists to go away. The clouds don't go away. The mystery of God remains a mystery. They deserve to keep it like that.
Max Cavalera is not featured on it. The much-hyped reunion that the metal community spent the last decade demanding, with every message becoming louder until it went all caps, occurred several times, but this is not the record. This is an album by Derrick Green and his band, which has been together for more than twenty years already. To ask them about why they haven't got Max back yet sounds like going to a pub that has changed owners in 1999 and then asking what happened. But he does look energetic, focused and well-rehearsed.
It sounds like a band that has found something important to say to its listeners. The time couldn't have been worse, though. The music couldn't.
Recording an entire double album as a goodbye would mean that they will have to do something in which Sepultura never was great – that is, to take stock of their career. On the contrary, this EP leaves a lot of questions open, sounding fresh, unusual and focused on four musicians finding common language in ten days in Miami. That's the most dangerous thing the guys could have done on their way out of the game, and they managed to pull it off.
Verdict: A fitting end – mysterious, unfulfilled and passionate enough to feel as if they could have played forever. Eight points out of ten due to Beyond the Dream being a power ballad, which is always problematic.
Go support them – and enjoy it while it lasts.
Score 8/10 better than your band's last record and you know it.
Track List
01 All Souls Rising
02 Beyond the Dream
03 Sacred Books
04 The Place
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