Review: Sepultura, Marble Factory

There’s a distinctly wintery chill in the air outside, but fling open the Marble Factory doors and you’re almost knocked off your feet by the wave of heat from the packed, moshing crowd. Sweaty, shirtless blokes are hurling themselves around, threatening ignominious death by moob to anyone foolish enough to get in their way. Another fella sports a fine purple mohican, which remains remarkably unwilted to the end. Excellent lacquering, dude.

This frenetic, tribe-gathering audience can mean only one thing: Sepultura are back in town. While it’s true to say that Belo Horizonte’s self-styled Third World Posse lost commercial momentum following the acrimonious departure of charismatic frontman Max Cavalera back in 1996, their brutal assault works better in these pressure cooker venues than in arenas or stadiums. This is billed as a 30th anniversary tour, which means we get at least one track from most of their albums, with the strongest crowd response inevitably reserved for the “old shit”, chiefly drawn from Roots and Chaos AD – though really gnarly old-skool fans were delighted to hear one track apiece from Schizophrenia, Morbid Visions and the Seps’ crude 1985 debut EP, Bestial Devastation.

Despite fronting Sepultura for nearly two decades, Derrick Green will always be forced to labour in founder Cavalera’s shadow. But by all objective standards, he’s a better singer than his predecessor, being blessed with a mighty roar. He also orchestrates the mosh pit chaos like a hulking great prize-fighter. Who’d have guessed that he comes from an arty background and his sister is a professor at MIT? While guitarist Andreas Kisser remains the band’s backbone, Sepultura are one of those rare metal acts who use drums as a lead instrument. Current drum stool incumbent Eloy Casagrande handles with ease the complex tribal rhythms that make the band’s music so distinctive, and is joined by Green for a wall-of-drums duel on the ferocious Ratamahatta – which is about as close to WOMAD territory as Sepultura are ever likely to get (i.e. not very close at all, mercifully).

This gets a suitably ecstatic audience response, as does the evergreen punky agitprop of Refuse/Resist and the never-more-topical Territory. And for those of us who want more than a thrashy nostalgia trip, The Vatican from current album The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart proves that Sepultura can still summon the anger of their early material for a searing broadside against the primary religion of their homeland. There’s no encore, and occasional long pauses between songs sap momentum somewhat, but the punters who’ve been howling for Roots Bloody Roots all evening finally have their craving sated and the whole room goes predictably apeshit.