Arise (Sepultura album)

Production

In August 1990, the band travelled to Florida to work on the album. Scott Burns reprised his role as producer and audio engineer, and now with a major advantage: Sepultura were at his home studio, Morrisound, a studio properly equipped to record their music style. Their label Roadrunner granted a $40,000 budget, which helped explain the album's improved production values. That allowed Igor and Burns, for example, to spend a whole week just testing the drum kit's tunings and experimenting with microphone practice.

Musical style

Although lead guitarist Andreas Kisser stated that Arise "took a lot of the same direction" as their previous LP, Beneath the Remains, it was clear that their music had somehow changed. Sepultura's usual breakneck pace became toned down a bit; drummer Igor Cavalera started using groove-laden rhythms. According to metal specialist Don Kaye, the album "represented the band taking their initial death/thrash sound to its logical conclusion."

Arise also found the band opening up to non-metal influences. Bands such as Einstürzende Neubauten, The Young Gods and Ministry were already part of Sepultura's listening habits, and slight touches of industrial music can be traced through the use of samples and sound effects. A trademark of a later phase—Latin percussion and "tribal" drumming—made its first appearance on the song "Altered State". The band's old love for hardcore punk is evident on "Subtraction" and "Desperate Cry".

Touring and promotion

Just one day after finishing the recording of Arise, the band embarked on a small headlining tour with extreme metallers Obituary and Sadus. That was the start of the longest promotional tour of Sepultura's career, a worldwide affair that would span two full years. In January 1991 they were invited to play for at the Brazilian music festival Rock in Rio 2 where their performance was watched by a 70,000-strong crowd.

Before heading out of Brazil on a mid-1991 European tour, Sepultura performed one more concert in São Paulo, the country's largest city. It took place at Praça Charles Miller (in front of Estádio do Pacaembu), on May 11. Local military police expected 10,000 to attend. 30,000 showed up instead, making crowd management nearly impossible. Six people were hurt, 18 were arrested and one was murdered with an axe. A week before, a young man was stabbed to death at a Ramones concert in São Paulo, during a brawl between headbangers and skinheads. These events were followed by a huge mainstream media backlash throughout the country against rock music.

Sepultura's three-month tour with thrash metal groups Sacred Reich and Heathen was a critical success. For the first time they appeared on the cover of best-selling British heavy metal magazine Kerrang! and major pop weeklies such as Melody Maker and NME published long feature articles on the group. While in Spain Sepultura recorded their Under Siege video, which included their Barcelona concert and interview footage with all four members of the band. After Europe, they toured North America with grindcore pioneers Napalm Death, New York City hardcore punk group Sick of It All and Sacred Reich. Sepultura wrapped up the year doing a brief German tour with NWOBHM legends Mötorhead and Florida death metal group Morbid Angel in December.

Sepultura then managed to secure a slot in two of the most sought after rock tours of 1992. One was done with ex-Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne, who was promoting his multi-platinum solo album No More Tears while the second tour was with industrial metal stalwarts Ministry and influential Alternative Metal/noise rock unit Helmet. Both of these American acts had just released the most successful records of their careers - namely Psalm 69 and Meantime.

A remastered version of Arise was released by Roadrunner in 1997, with added notes by music critic Don Kaye and four bonus tracks, previously released on the compilation The Roots Of Sepultura: a cover version of Motörhead's "Orgasmatron", a rough mix of "Desperate Cry" and two previously unreleased songs. A previously unavailable photo shoot from the Arise period was also included in the expanded CD booklet.

Reception

Arise garnered praise from a wide variety of sources. By the time of its release, major Brazilian newspapers were already aware of the band's existence, and advance copies sent to them were generally met with positive reviews. Artur G. Couto Duarte, writing for O Estado de Minas, described Sepultura's soundscapes as "stories describing barren worlds where disease, hunger, torture and death reign supreme". Folha de S.Paulo's Sérgio Sá Leitão pointed out Sepultura's increasing compositional skills, drawing attention to how the band's occasional use of restraint benefited their songs as a whole.

The international pop press also took notice of Brazil's premiere metal group. Top British weeklies such as the Melody Maker and NME wrote lengthy articles on the band, praising them. A Melody Maker journalist wrote: "Sepultura is [...] a Brazilian metal band which seems to be in the verge of getting big - maybe even bigger than Slayer, their only true rival." Genre-specific magazines also reacted positively to the group. Germany's Thrash elected Sepultura the best band in the world, defeating major contenders Metallica and Slayer. Sepultura were also prominently featured on the biggest metal publications of the time, such as Kerrang!, Rock Hard and Metal Forces. Select gave the album a five out of five rating, referring to it as a "a classic example of rock music as pure cathartic release" and that "few metal LPs released this year, if any, will triumph over Arise."

Arise was the first Sepultura record to enter the Billboard charts, at number 119. It was also the first to gain a music certification—Arise went gold in 1992 for selling 25,000 copies in Indonesia. By 1993, the album had sold 1 million units around the globe. In 2001, it won a second certification: silver in the United Kingdom, for selling in excess of 60,000 copies.

Throughout the years, Arise has been continuously praised by the music press, not only as a landmark release of Sepultura's career, but of extreme metal in general. In November 1996, Q magazine stated that "Arise remains their thrash high water mark, sounding like an angry man throwing tools at a urinal while reading the Book of Revelations [sic]." AllMusic contributor Eduardo Rivadavia considered Arise as "a classic of the death metal genre." The album also appeared in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2006), edited by writer Robert Dimery.

Track listing

All music composed by Sepultura, except where noted.

Personnel

Sepultura

Production