Cavalera – "Morbid Visions + Bestial Devastation" 2023

Masterful redemption of those bloody roots

Normally, I wouldn't give a re-recording the time of day as a music journalist. However, the re-recordings in question here are special. Too special to neglect either willfully or by accident.

I've listened to heavy metal since I was 10. And it's been a gradual process. It wasn't until my mid-20s that I started getting into proper black metal. Before that, death metal had also taken me a handful of years to understand since the onset. And back in the '90s, a big part of my softening up towards more extreme metal was Sepultura.

But as much as I loved, and still love, albums like "Arise" ('91) and "Chaos A.D." ('93), I just couldn't get into that damn full-length debut, "Morbid Visions" ('86), and its precluding EP "Bestial Devastation" ('85). I tried revisiting them for years and years, but those recordings just plain irreparably sounded like shit.

Yes, I realize that back in the day, the young Brazilian band was strapped for cash and that they were emulating other extreme lo-fi outfits like Venom. But no, a poor production rarely, if ever, improved upon any music, no matter how extreme in nature. In fact, I'd argue that the faster and more distorted music you create, the sharper the sound needs to be, lest you wanna end up with a muddled bunch of noises rather than actual songs.

How wonderful, then, that the Cavalera brothers – famously more Sepultura than that incarnation of Sepultura that's been going by that name since the late '90s – finally took it upon themselves to correct that glaring lack of production standard in those early recordings.

Starting with "Bestial Devastation", then, and just to acquiesce in the original band's original (morbid) vision, you can clearly hear the inspiration from early Slayer. And the attempt at making it more evil is legitimate and admirable. But the execution is just far too below optimal. The drums and guitar aren't playing together, neither rhythmically nor production-wise. While the toms do bring a sense of depth to the whole thing, the snare drum and hi-hat are way too far ahead in the soundscape, and Iggors fills are hella sloppy. The guitar has way too little sustain. Max's vocals sound like a hoarse old dog, they're halfway drowning in reverb and tripping over their own broken English in a vain attempt to cram all those pesky syllables into those deceptively short bars.

But holy shit, have the Cavalera brothers just injected equal parts massive brawn and experience into the whole deal – and without compromising on any of the original recordings' brutality and inhuman evil. The guitar sound is both a lot fuller and more trebled, making it even more abrasive. Max's vocals are not only audible, but perfectly badass, no longer sounding like a sarcastic interloper taunting the vocal style that he himself is attempting to perform, but like an otherworldly demon that doesn't take shit from anybody.

The reimagining just fucking works. The soundscape is grandiose, the guitar sound is majestic – and hey, the damn thing's even in tune! And the vocals, now a full, abdominally-supported, thundering roar rather than an untrained puberty teen's half-assed attempt at growling, are more breathtaking than ever.

The original "Antichrist", featuring a proto-blast beat, does have a somewhat memorable chorus, and its aggression is totally legit. But it's loose bordering on disjointed; the drums have zero production; the guitar is way too dry, and has no mid-range tone. So apart from the downtempo section, the whole thing ends up a tumbling, monotonous mess. But today, bros. Cavalera manage to differentiate between the various sections. Partly because they've spent 38 years since then playing songs in which the different sections have different purposes, partly because their instruments are getting some actual dynamic range. And everything here sounds infinitely more aggressive.

Also the original "Necromancer" has a downtempo section where you can kinda hear what's going on. But then the thrash pace commences, and everything muddles again. The solo is one long atonal joke, and the hapless lyrics and vocals make the whole thing so laughable you wouldn't think it could be salvaged. But Max and Iggor do exactly that, playing together like a complex, merciless machinery. I almost can't contain the intensity of the chorus here.

Just moving on to the "Morbid Visions" album, you'd think that the band would've at least gotten some basic studio experience at this point. But apparently not. This time, diametrically opposite on the EP, the guitar sound has way too MUCH mid-range tone – and zero width. While Iggor has gotten tighter, he's still not entirely on point, sometimes approaching a bit of an unintended shuffle. The drums are too loud compared to the guitar. The vocals, again, are both struggling to keep up with the pace and sounding like someone who's trying to make fun of extreme metal vocals. While the riffs themselves are badass, the entire soundscape sounds so much like a cheap rehearsal room demo that the whole thing bellyflops.

First and foremost, though, the goddamn guitar isn't properly tuned. The power chords, usually rooted at the 6th and 5th strings, are consequently out of tune. The band members have even admitted to this later on. And that, right there, should absolve any listener of having to deal with any album.

"Troops of Doom" became a minor hit for the band, for the reason that the slow tempo allows the listener to actually hear what's going on from the beginning. But the vocals are still a joke, and when the track is at its fastest, that snare drum sounds conspicuously like the bottom of a cookie tin. Yes, if you're one of those people who (rightly) slam the production on "St. Anger", you'd better not consider the original "Morbid Visions" a superior production.

Anyway. Again, the reimagining just fucking works. The soundscape is grandiose, the guitar sound is majestic – and hey, the damn thing's even in tune! And again, the vocals, now a full, abdominally-supported, thundering roar rather than an untrained puberty teen's half-assed attempt at growling, are more breathtaking than ever. Oh man, have I been waiting for decades to enjoy this.

The Cavalera brothers have finally rectified one of the entire genre's great blemishes so those of us who prefer some goddamn depth to our brutality can finally get the best of both worlds.

The same semi-hit quality goes for "Show Me the Wrath", starting with a chord progression that could have been taken from jazz or progressive rock. Iggor, on the original, is a bit too eag(g)er to show off his uptempo playing, sometimes tripping over his own pace. The guitar sounds like something that could fit in a matchbox, and the vocals sound like something that shouldn't take place in a bathroom, but does.

And, to reiterate, the re-recording finally does justice to the ideas. The drums are much tighter, and at the same time, even faster. The guitar sounds like a gigantic circular saw cutting through a mountain of solid steel. And the vocals are more dramatic than Max has ever sounded in any band. This is the most metal that any member of the Cavalera family has ever been, ladies and gentlemen.

One thing you absolutely gotta admit to the originals, though, is that they're inarguably groundbreaking. That tremolo-lead guitar is pure proto-black metal. And even though the band was a bunch of hormonal teenagers at the time, they expanded upon what Venom and Celtic Frost were doing way before the Norwegians got the memo.

But finally, you can actually hear what's going on. Yes, it's the damnedest thing, but people actually like to be able to hear what's going on in music, what with it being an auditory medium and all. And the Cavalera brothers have finally rectified one of the entire genre's great blemishes so those of us who prefer some goddamn depth to our brutality can finally get the best of both worlds. And, shit, even the new cover art perfectly reflects the change: The originals were unintentionally ridiculous and devoid of perspective and minutiae; the new ones are ominously convincing in all their apocalyptic detail.

Adding to the superiority of it all, the new recordings, segued by guitar feedback, sound unmistakably like they're recorded as a demo – which wouldn't surprise me, given the uncompromising nature of the whole deal. And to top it all off are two newly recorded songs, "Sexta Feira 13" and "Burn the Dead", based on old riffs from back then, remembered by heart. These would've been a bit on the H/C-side for my taste, had it not been for the fact that they're both so wonderfully ugly and aggressive that you not only start to forgive the Cavaleras for all that jumpy baggy pants shit they've been messing with for the last many years; you even start to appreciate its linkage to actual metal.

Overall, these albums are still chaotic in nature. Hell, these refurbished versions sound even more like the end of the world – just like they were always supposed to. And while it's a long overdue amendment, we're still dealing with material that isn't exactly very dynamic or memorable in nature. So I can't very well rate 'em any higher than 5/6. And these being re-recordings, they're not gonna be counting towards my yearly album-top 10. But like I said, these re-recordings are special.

In fact, had the Cavalera brothers released these albums as a newly formed band, they would've not only become local stand-outs like back then; they would've taken the entire global metal community by storm. Just like they were always supposed to.

Rating: 5 out of 6

Genre: Thrash / black / death metal
Release date: 14/7/2023
Label: Nuclear Blast
Producer: Max + Iggor Cavalera