EP Review: Sepultura - The Cloud of Unknowing
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
And so, it comes to an end. I’m old enough to remember when Sepultura were the saviours of the Thrash Metal scene; out of Belo Horizonte with a Brazilian flare and anger in their musical souls, this was the brothers Max and Igor Cavalera, Andreas Kisser and Paulo Xisto Pinto Júnior shaking the late-Eighties extreme music arena to its foundations. It’s difficult to convey the importance albums like Beneath the Remains, Arise and Chaos AD had at the time to someone who didn’t live through it, save to say it was seismic.
Roots is credited / blamed for being one of the first Nu-Metal records, but it was on this tour that Max suddenly departed the band, after a show at Brixton’s Academy in December 1996. He would go off to form Soulfly, leaving the other three members in limbo until they recruited Outface/ Alpha Jerk frontman, Derrick Green, to fill Max’s shoes. It’s a position he’s occupied since 1997 and across nine studio albums and two EPs, with this, The Cloud of Unknowing, being Sepultura’s swansong.
It was the departure of drummer Eloy Casagrande to Slipknot and the recruitment of twenty-three -year-old wunderkind, Greyson Nekrutman - who’d already kept time for Suicidal Tendencies – in 2024 that inspired Sepultura to capture the band’s chemistry in one final recording.
Although only four songs – and about twenty-minutes – long, A Cloud of Unknowing is a whirlwind trip through the history of the Sepultura, from the old, blasting thrash of opener All Souls Rising, with its rampant drums and barked vocals; to the ballad Beyond the Dream, which uses mournful guitars and Derrick’s clean tones, to the grooves of Sacred Books’ slow, though no less intense, atmosphere.
In amongst All Souls Rising’s bluster and brashness is an orchestral element that operates in direct opposition to the screaming guitars and driving drums. Unrelenting and uncompromising, it creates a true musical journey, following a path Sepultura themselves have long trodden. Sacred Books, on the other hand, is embellished with sparse piano, which enhances rather than distracts from the song’s overall message, held in the vocal refrain of “seeking truth…”
Sandwiched between is the ballad Beyond the Dream’s introspection and you cannot help but wonder to what extent this – and indeed the whole EP – is at least a little autobiographical. There’s nothing maudlin about this, though the lyrical repetition of “Leave it all behind to begin again…” does cast an eye to the future. A cloud of unknowing indeed.
The final track on the EP – and the end of Sepultura’s recording career – comes in the form of The Place, a combination of fragile verses and aggressive choruses, with Paulo’s bass coming though more prominently than at any other place on the EP. Crunching guitars and rapid grooving occupy the latter portion of the tune, until Andreas sustains a chord to the end.
I might be reading far too much into this, but the reported intent of The Place is a comment on immigration; yet I can’t help but hear a parallel to Derrick’s tenure as Sepultura’s frontman.
I should admit that I have something of an affinity to the band, post-Max, as I made a life-changing decision on 30 November 1998, just before going to see Sepultura at Manchester Academy on the Against tour; it felt like new beginnings all round.
Formed in 1984, ground-breaking in both popularity and in maintaining a particularly Brazilian ambience to their aggression, fourteen Gold Records and having toured through over eighty countries, Sepultura will always stand as one of the most influential bands of their time. That
Andreas and Paulo have refused/ resisted the surely lucrative reunion with the Cavalera brothers is testament to their commitment to the current iteration of the band.
The Friday night special guest slot at this year’s Bloodstock Open Air festival in August will be the last time the UK will witness these legends on stage; it’s sure to be a monumental and emotional performance. Just as The Cloud of Unknowing is a fitting finale to their recording career.
