Sepultura - A-Lex |
Published February 02 2009
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A-Lex I |
| Genre | Thrash Metal |
Derrick Greene
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Vocals
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| Tracks | 18 |
Andreas Kisser
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Guitar
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| Runningtime | 54 Min. |
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Guitar
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| Label | SPV |
Paulo JR.
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Bass
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| Release | 23 January 2009 |
Jean Dolabella
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Drums
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| Country | Brazil |
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Keyboard
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| Similar artists | --- | ||
Sepultura return to the folds with a spanking new album, and for the first time the band is free from any Cavalera's. Whether it is right for the remaining members to still go under the name of Sepultura or not is surely something many is willing to debate at the moment, but personally I go by what is printed on the sleeve in this case, although it feels somewhat awkward. Just as with their former album Dante, the new effort A-Lex is yet another ambitious concept-album. A-Lex has a double entendre as alex in Russian means something like outlaw, whilst Alex is the main-character in A Clockwork Orange. Anyone who hasn't seen the movie? If not, be ashamed! In likeness with Stanley Kubrick, the Brazilians have been inspired by the book by Anthony Burgess, although, Sepultura include the entire book while the motion picture miss out on the final chapter.
The album leaves me with an impression of diversity, it is as if they are summoning all their bodily powers to get their message through, but perhaps they are overdoing it and more than once it leaves you with a sensation of ill-tempered hard-core. It feels to me that the will outshines what they actually perform and the result leaves me with a taste of too much chopped out aggro and too little of the riffing thrash mayhem that I know Sepultura possess. However, without even knowing you find yourself swaying your neck along to the sweat thrash killer-riffs from Andreas Kisser, so sure enough, the riffs are there but just not to the extent I would have liked them to.
After a while the album starts to sink in and some songs rise above the rest, but even though the album grows it still does not reach any peaks among the Sepultura discography, and then A-Lex is one of the band's better albums in recent time after all. Songs like The Experiment and Paradox (and even Moloko Mesto to some extent) are killers that has "the right sound" and completely oozes of brilliant thrash metal of dignity. Even a compressed song like the short and punchy Enough Said shows the master skills of Sepultura, even though it clocks in on merely one minute and thirty-seven seconds. Why this album doesn't carry more of this stuff with bloody goddamn classic Sepultura thrash is a mystery to me.
That the album has problems with holding together becomes embarrassingly apparent in a track like Ludwig Van since it only brings out a feeling of schizophrenia when it suddenly sounds like Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Sure, it has its charm, but nevertheless it feels completely out of place. No matter how much the elements of classical music has its place in the story about Alex, it simply does not belong here. Another weakness is the general length of the songs, when they are barely two or three minutes long, it ends with them tending to feel being left only half-done. That is a pity since there are quite a few really good tendencies and good ideas in the songs that never get to bloom.
Finally, it is safe to say that with anyone named Cavalera in the band or not, Sepultura still stand tall. Moreover, the remaining members still show high class and an administrated sound in true Sepultura manner, although you will not find a new Arise or Chaos A.D. in a million miles near A-Lex.
See
also review of: Machine
Messiah , Live
In Sao Paolo
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Performance
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Originality
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Production
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Vocals
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Songwriting
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6 |
4 |
7 |
5 |
3 |
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Summary
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5 chalices of 10 - Thomas |
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