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Sepultura Tributes
Sepultural Feast
(Black Sun - 1998)
Sacramentum - The Curse - Antichrist Garage brutal death with a lot of blasting drums, growling vocals and sick, gritty guitars all done acceptably well, but otherwise raw and slightly uninteresting. It's good to hear this originally badly produced track covered with a more aggressive sound however. Deathwitch - Necromancer Again, it's nice to hear the vastly improved sound but this track is slightly flawed by a rigid drummer. A pretty enjoyable but faithful deathrash cover. Mystifier - Warriors of Death Originally a great track buried under bad sound, it not only gets a boost here but a few interesting additions as well in the form of a dark introduction, blood-crusted raspy growls, and a radically changed and expanded guitar solo with atmospheric keyboards. Not as brutal or enjoyable as I would have hoped and the drums were recorded badly for some reason, but an interesting cover nevertheless. Swordmaster - Warriors of Death And here is the aggressive cover I was looking for. Superbly energetic with rabid raspy vocals and an amazing guitar solo that even outdoes the original. Fantastic! The most exciting track on this album. Dimension Zero - Troops of Doom What can I say, it's a joy to hear these early numbers covered with good sound and brutal renditions. An energetic brutal death cover with both grunting and raspy vocals (two vocalists?), some blast beats and slight changes. Superb. Lord Belial - Crucifixion A good choice by Lord Belial to convert into a blasting storm of mixed death metal brutality and harsh black metal holocaust. The result is a tad messy and noisy at times though, with the lead guitar sticking its warbling chaos all over the place. At times good but overall mediocre. Defleshed - Beneath the Remains More brutal death interpretation done with subtle changes, roaring guitars and somewhat weak but acceptable death growls for such a brutal sound. Done well and enjoyable but otherwise unremarkable. I prefer the original. Impious - Inner Self Slight changes in the riffs and drumming, and phlegm-heavy, scratchy growls as vocals. Not enough change but pretty good. Children of Bodom - Mass Hypnosis With just enough changes to make this one their own without making it unrecognizable, Children of Bodom cover this one with technical skill, harmonic touches, guitar wizadry, cheesy keyboard punctuation marks and slightly over-enthusiastic rabid vocals. A tad flawed but good nevertheless. The Crown - Arise An extended introduction builds to a blasting but raw, lesser produced interpretation with a lot of raspy yells and speed. Although faster doesn't mean more brutal, the new sound works acceptably well for this track. Not bad. Exhumation - Territory This one sounds like an exact copy of Sepultura only more brutal. Maybe Max and the band took steroids for this track. Roaringly good. Gooseflesh - Slave New World More of the same only with a slightly more death metalized rendition. Somewhat good (if you enjoyed the original). Slavestate - Roots Bloody Roots A well done cover that is slightly beefier and heavier, with a more dissonant guitar 'solo', but otherwise faithful. Gardenian - Cut-Throat Death metalized, radically changed interpretation with none of that bouncy nu-metal feel and without increasing the speed. Good death growls. Nice! Denial - Ratamahatta An edited version with more heaviness, harsh yelling and less loose self-indulgence and Brazilian noise (the percussion still sounds 'tribal' though). What the original should have been. Not that good but interesting. Summary: This tribute seems to have focused on the good tracks from the more troublesome albums, barely touching Beneath and Arise and skipping Schizophrenia. This is good in a way and serves as a useful best-of compilation as well as makes things fun when the original old songs are beefed up this way. Also the album is in chronological order so you can always stop playing when your appreciation of Sepultura ran out. There is also the fact that there are no bad tracks here, only less interesting ones. All this makes a well-thought out and worthy tribute that comes recommended.
World of Pain
(Dwell - 1999)
Pain Corporation - Slave New World Electronica and atmospherics adorn this chugging cover that sounds like a nu-metal song torn between the Gothenberg death metal sound and industrial/ambient. Weird but true. Even the death growls are processed. The result is a somewhat mechanical track making me think these are industrialists posing as death metallists. Mediocre, or pretty good if you take it as an industrial hybrid. Hate Theory - Amen What's the point of beefing this up with slightly heavier guitars and fuller growling vocals if you're not going to change anything else and throw out or drown the lead guitar parts? The result is boring and the original wasn't that interesting to begin with. Enter Self - Bestial Devastation A dubious, uninteresting choice and a straightforward death metal delivery don't make this into anything worth mentioning. Fractura - Nomad Heavily industrial tinged, boring and untalented cover with absolutely horrible vocals that sound like a 14 year old trying to bark and growl and only managing to croak. Whoever gave these people sound equipment should be shot. Hostile Intent - Roots Bloody Roots Yell and process your vocals all you want but you completely lost the original, primal feel of this track. A boring, constipated, vastly inferior copy. Rise - Primitive Future I always liked this underground death metal band since their demo days and I keep waiting for their time to come. A good chugging rendition, slightly raw but aggressively enjoyable. Abhorrent - Clenched Fist From their fellow Brazilian talented thrashers comes a surprising pick out of the Chaos AD album. What's even more surprising is that they do a pretty weak job at it but at least they made me rediscover the original good track. A garage-quality, inferior copy. Terminal Plan - Propaganda The drummer is either on drugs or they sped up the drum track some. In any case the precision and speed of this drumming is impressive. Shame that the absolutely tiny sound kills everything though. Otherwise, this is an energetic death rendition with deep death growls but ruined by bad sound, a loss of focus during the last minute. Crematorium - Arise More speed and energy but not necessarily more brutal thanks to a mechanical drummer. Still, this is quite good and smokes for the most part. Decay of Salvation - Troops of Doom Downtuned, deep death growls, sped up, but dull and unfocused. Vore - Inner Self Surprisingly, Vore chooses to slow the track down instead of the other way around. The result is sludgy at first but it slowly picks up to a very thick-sounding headbanging joy. Pretty good. Turning of the Gears - Desperate Cry Very sloppy garage sounding cover with a few embellishments and changes and a terrible sound. Absolutely horrible. Mystifier - Morbid Visions Mystifier are back yet again, this time with another original twist that only works halfway. After a surprising melodic, acoustic introduction, this cover erupts into death metal, then doomdeath with questionable, layered growling vocals. This is the third time I'm put off by some of the lame vocal touches used by Mystifier. Engrave Speed Death - Beneath the Remains Boasting enough subtle changes to slightly alter the sound, this energetic death metal interpretation ends this tribute on an enjoyable, if somewhat unremarkable note. Summary: Dwell keeps churning them out and this one reaches a new low with a couple of tracks that I would be ashamed to find present on a demo. Add to this the fact that 6 tracks were taken from Chaos and Roots, and Schizophrenia was skipped again as if it were leprous. Some good tracks here, but I'd recommend to avoid this one.
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