Roots (Sepultura album)

Production and lyrics

The album was produced by Ross Robinson. The majority of the themes presented on Roots are centered on Brazilian politics and culture. The concept for the album was inspired by the film At Play in the Fields of the Lord. The movie inspired Max Cavalera to travel to Mato Grosso, Brazil to visit the Xavante tribe. The album cover features an indigenous woman taken from a banknote of the discontinued Brazilian cruzeiro, to which artist Michael Whelan added a locket with Sepultura's "tribal S" logo and a background of red roots.

A lot of the music on Roots reflects Brazil's history and culture. According to Max Cavalera, "Roots Bloody Roots" is "about believe in yourself, about be proud of your heritage, proud of where you come from. Really powerful but simple lyrics. So it's really about just be down with your own roots and believe in your roots". "Cut Throat" is about Epic Records. "Ratamahatta" is "a celebration of life in Brazil's slums, sung all in Portuguese, which tells the stories of" people "like Ze Do Caixo (Coffin Joe) and Lampiao, the leader of an early 1900s outlaw gang from north Brazil, whose head was put on public display after he was captured". "Ambush" is "a tribute to murdered South American rain-forest activist Chico Mendes".

Musical style and influences

The inspiration for Sepultura's new musical direction was twofold. One was the desire to further experiment with the music of Brazil, especially the percussive type played by Salvador, Bahia samba reggae group Olodum. Another innovation Roots brought was the inspiration taken from the sound of Korn - especially their debut, with its heavily down-tuned guitars.

The music of Roots has sounds of world music, death metal, nu metal, thrash metal, tribal music and Brazilian folk music.

The band incorporated these elements into almost all songs in the album, and one of them ("Itsári") was actually recorded with members of the Xavante Indians at their ancestral home. Meeting the Xavante Indians meant a lot to Sepultura. Igor says that the band identified a lot with the natives: "In a certain way, I think that we, as a band, had a lot of things in common with the Xavante Indians. We also lived on the edge of society, and our music and lifestyle is a long way from being assimilated and respected by that society." A spokesman of the tribe declared: "We had seen pictures of Sepultura and we knew that they were different, with their long hair and many tattoos. We also knew that they had been discriminated, like we were. Because of that we were very curious about them." Some songs also include participation ("Ratamahatta", "Dictatorshit" and "Endangered Species") and co-writing ("Ratamahatta") from Carlinhos Brown, a popular Brazilian musician. The political theme and influence of hardcore punk on the album are further reflected in the topic of "Dictatorshit", namely the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état. The lyrics to "Attitude" were co-written by Dana Wells, Max Cavalera's stepson, whose death (in part) led to the events which caused Max to leave the band. Dana also came up with the concept for the video for the song, featuring Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experts the Gracie family.

In 2008, speaking to Kerrang!, Max Cavalera remembered:

"Roots came from a blurry dream I had about going to the rainforest. Wine may have been involved. In the end, when we actually went into the forest to record, it was unbelievable. The whole album was a huge personal journey for me, and as a Brazilian, it felt as an incredible achievement. Everyone was inspired and Igor was at the top of his game. The percussion was crazy and we worked with so many great musicians, in the end coming out with a 15-minutes drum jam that someone likened to a crazy Brazilian Pink Floyd. When we took the album to Roadrunner they loved it except for the title. They thought it would sound like a Bob Marley tribute album. We explained it to them, and thankfully they got it."

The last words in the song "Cut-Throat" are "Enslavement, Pathetic, Ignorant, Corporations". This spells EPIC, the record company with which Sepultura had some trouble during their previous album, Chaos A.D.

Critical reception

American newspapers like The New Times, the Daily News and the Los Angeles Times reviewed the Brazilian band: "The mixture of the dense metal of Sepultura and the Brazilian music has a intoxicating effect", wrote a Los Angeles Times reviewer. The Daily News praised the album saying: "Sepultura reinvented the wheel. By mixing metal with native instruments, the band resuscitates the tired genre, reminding of Led Zeppelin times. But while Zeppelin mixed English metal with African beats, it's still more moving to hear a band that uses elements of its own country. By extracting the sounds of the past, Sepultura determines the future direction of metal".

Specialized heavy metal critics also reviewed the album positively. Martin Popoff, author of the book The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal, ranked Roots as the 11th best metal record of all time. "This is a spectacular metal and futurist hardcore LP", wrote Popoff, "a masterpiece, accomplished by a band with an enormous heart and an even larger intellect". Kerrang! magazine awarded Roots second place in the list of "100 records that you have to hear before dying"; just after In Utero from Nirvana. In 2001 Q magazine named Roots as one of the 50 Heaviest Albums Of All Time. Rolling Stone Brasil named it the 57th best Brazilian music album. Rolling Stone (3/21/96, p. 98) gave the album three stars out of five and said, "Sepultura play a violent game of sonic overload... the band uses its catharsis as a creative force, funneling torrents of noise into a tunnel of hate." Music critic Robert Christgau gave the album a negative "dud" rating. Looking back on the album 20 years later, PopMatters contributor Saby Reyes-Kulkarni referred to Roots as "inarguably one of the most radical [stylistic] departures from convention in heavy metal history."

Track listing

All lyrics written by Max Cavalera, except where noted; all music composed by Sepultura, except where noted.

The Roots of Sepultura

The Roots of Sepultura is a double-disc album by Sepultura, released in November 1996. It was a collection of unreleased tracks, b-sides, alternate mixes, and live recordings. This release is unique from Roots and the 2005 25th Anniversary Roots album as the B-Sides disc has a drastically different series of tracks. This album contains a unique cover of tracks by Motörhead, Dead Kennedys, Os Mutantes and Ratos de Porão paying tribute to the bands that heavily influenced Sepultura, and also includes tracks from their first live home video Under Siege (Live in Barcelona).

Chart positions and award certifications

Album - Billboard (North America)

Album - Music recording sales certifications