Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Sepultura - Arise (1991)
Like Seasons In The Abyss, the fourth full length from Sepultura offers a very nostalgic and important point in my metal evolution. As with my review for the aforementioned Slayer release, playing this whilst I type the review brings back many fond memories of thrashing around my bedroom like a fucking maniac, being interrupted every five minutes by my parents telling me to "turn that shit down". Similarly to Slayer's album one year before this, I don't think Arise was ever bettered and most certainly was the last great release by the band. I found follow up Chaos AD to be very patchy and by the time the "world music" celebration of Roots came alongI had detached altogether from the band.
The album's that preceded Arise made for an excellent golden run of constant improvement and development of the band's sound, from the raw and chaotic Morbid Visions to the more refined and robust Schizophrenia and Beneath the Remains there was an obvious enhancement to the playing skill and songwriting prowess of the band. With a stable line-up for some three studio albums (including this one) the band were very much hitting their stride by album number four.
The title track opens proceedings with it's mechanical clattering giving way to a barking riff and thundering drums, setting the scene perfectly for the cultivated thrash metal to come over the next eight tracks.. Again, this is another album I can comfortably play through in my head track by track as I have played it so many times. The current copy of the album I have is a remaster with the Orgasmatron cover and three bonus tracks but to be honest apart from the cover of the Motorhead track, the additions bring nothing to the table.
The album stalwarts are all that's required here as the legendary Dead Embryonic Cells kicks in with its powerful lyrics and timeless riffing before the anthemic Desperate Cry ups the memorability stakes even further . At this point the album starts to lose that half a star to keep it off full marks for me as I don't find Murder or Subtraction to be on the same par as the rest of the racks on the record. Thankfully the lull is only temporary and pretty soon things are back on course with the atmospheric build of Altered State creating drama and suspense that is fully realised the instance that huge fucking riff drops. The track fully embraces the free-flowing and well organised thrash metal that is so well established by now on the record. Despite the obvious accomplishment of the album there remains some primitive feel also which lurks beneath the surface all the time. It could be Igor's thundering and tribal drumming or Max's powerful and angry vocal style but you are never far away from the real murk of the band that they came from.
Track number seven utilises the same format as the prior one, Under Siege (Regnum Irae) starts with an atmospheric string pick before breaking into ethereal spoken word vocals. Again, it is not long before we are back in the kingdom of the faster tempo but the track does retain an excellent structure using all explored pacing well. The catchy and memorable Meaningless Movements sets up the album closer perfectly as Infected Voice brings things to a close with it's smashed cymbal sound to back up Max's gruff vocal delivery.
It does make itch a little bit that I can't give this five stars due to the importance of this record to me but the honest appraisal is that regardless of the missing half mark there's still so much to enjoy here and is an album that fully stands the test of time.