In praise of a Cavalera free Sepultura

I'm going to cut straight to the chase here. Sepultura was awesome with Max and Igor, but is also fucking awesome without them. In fact, the Cavalera free Sepultura is making better music than than Max and Igor are right now.

Last year I saw both Sepultura and the Cavalera Conspiracy at Irving Plaza. Sepultura put on a show with much more passion soul and intensity. Andreas Kisser was an animal, Derrick Green respected the old material, and they played almost everything I wanted to hear. In contrast, although the Cavalera Conspiracy did play a ton of classic Sepultura tracks, they did so in rushed abridged medleys that showed a complete contempt for the classics.

And so Sepultura just put out a new record no one bought. I mean seriously, they did less than 2,000 copies so far in America. It is called A-lex, based on the Clockwork Orange novel, and is really great. The only reason I haven't listened to it more is that the new Kreator and Napalm Death keep calling out to me. But no one is going to listen to it because there are no Cavaleras. However you shouldn't get caught up in names. Just listen to A-lex and feel the soul of this inspired and still energized band.