Roorback

Roorback (or “Roorbach” meaning a defamatory forgery or falsehood published for purposes of political intrigue) is the latest album by Sepultura being released to awaited fans of it on August 26th. A lot of fans have been waiting for this since 2001’s Nation record, but I had been hearing about it for a couple months building up my excitement further along the way. I was hoping that Roorback would be far better than the other release I had featuring Derrick Green, the replacement vocalist, Against and without a doubt, Roorback is much more superior sporting a much better lyrical value as well as being far more catchier.

Sepultura is the Brazilian band that stunned people with their Chaos A.D. back in '93 and have been a famous underground band for a while now. After the release of Roots in 1996 I think it was, Max Cavalera (the guitarist and vocalist also the brother of the drummer, Igor) departed from the band to start Soulfly so they had to find a replacement quick and they chose an Ohioan by the name of Derrick Green. In Against this guy really annoyed, but surprisingly he’s really good in Roorback. The angry vocals that he sets forth into motion as well as his incredibly relatable lyrics that he writes opposite of Andreas Kisser, the other guitarist, are some of the best of the genre.

In Sepultura there is Derrick Green. He’s the vocalist and in Against I hated him, but in Roorback he’s actually much better. I don’t know what it is, but he has a new vocal technique that’s really easy to get used to plus he experiments with singing a little bit in between all of his furious screaming that he’s famous for. Although he will never touch Max, he still holds his own and has blessed the band with his great vocals and mature lyrics. Igor Cavalera is the drummer and really puts the double bass to good use even if he doesn’t use it as much as he did in Against. I am convinced that he has three arms or something because his awesome drumming is just friggin’ phenomenal. He has to be one of the best drummers living right now because he has a heart-stopping quickness that no one else can match, but they are melodic too and that’s even wilder plus his expertise with percussion. Paulo Xisto is the bassist and a damn good one at that. He has a lot more solos and stand out lines in Roorback than he ever did in the past and that’s a really good thing because he’s a really good bassist. Although he mostly stays close to the guitar and strums the same notes, on most occasions he’s either strumming slower or faster than Kisser. But Andreas is awesome also. His guitar skills one day will match those of Max Cavalera. He is awesome and has some of the best guitar riffs in the business. He really knows how to not make repetitive notes and he brings a lot of depth into each song. I admire that guy.

Roorback is an enhanced disc so when you put it your computer you get the Bullet In The Sky video along with some other goodies, but it’s not the best enhanced disc I’ve ever seen. It’s still pretty good mind you. The cover is really good and a fresher cover than what they’re other covers were always like. I have to admit that all of Sepultura’s covers did get a little repetitive in the fact that they sometimes looked alike, but Roorback’s cover is so much unlike anything I’ve ever seen the band come up with. It shows a man (or demon you decide) either cutting into a bloody ball. Okay, so I don’t know what the hell is going on in the artwork, but it’s still pretty cool to look at. As for the inside of the booklet, you get the credits, thank you’s (the band still writes their thank you’s in Spanish…), and you get the lyrics, but the font that the band used to print their lyrics is crappy. You can barely read the lyrics and read the song titles. It’s in some kind of sloppy, burned-in type of font. It sucks, but if you look close enough then you will see that the lyrics are readable to a little extent.

All of the songs on Roorback are high quality since the CD took two years to make, but there are still some crappy tracks that really hurt the album in the long run like Leech and More Of The Same that are just repetitive and annoying songs that I skip each time I listen to the CD. There are a lot of good tracks like the opening track, Come Back Alive, which has a lot of political meanings. The song basically criticizes the US war against Iraq with lyrics such as “Sent in the middle of a war / You have to fight / Wondering how the fuxk / You ever landed over here”. The song is really good and has a really catchy atmosphere that you can’t help but sing along with. You also have friggin’ amazing song called Apes Of God, which weaves the story of priests turned to bastards. The song is really fast paced and awesome with thunderous drumming by monster rocker Igor Cavalera. Also, you have a track that one of the best with the name of Corrupted. This song is exactly like the song Propaganda (featured on Chaos A.D.), but it’s telling the governments things like “you can’t corrupt my mind—FUXK YOU!”. The song is really kickas$ and awesome. Also, did I tell you about how there is the bonus track Bullet The Blue Sky, which is a cover song of U2’s classic. Sepultura does a good job, but it doesn’t match the original at all even if this version has much more energy and flame to it all.

Roor On Back Again

In closing I would just like to say that I am very happy with the outcome and although it’s certainly not the best CD to come out this year, it is very good. If Sepultura could have deleted those two tracks I didn’t like and put in better ones, this one would have got a perfect score. There are two versions of this CD floating around. There’s a limited edition one with a bonus DVD and a limited edition one that has the two bonus tracks, which is the one that I own. I highly recommend this to anyone trying to get into Sepultura since this is a great record to start onto their style of music and although it’s not their best, it’s certainly up there near Roots and Chaos A.D.. When I listened to Against then I thought all hope was lost and that Derrick Green sucked and that he ruined the band, but with Roorback he proved me wrong and told me that there is life after Max and that the band isn’t going to stop without a fight. Thanks for reading and pick up Roorback at your nearest music store!

Jay

copyright September 2003


Jay’s Final Forecast

+ Sunny All Day Long

+ Very Much Different From Their Past Releases Due To Different Musical Style Of Writing The Songs

+ Roorback Is A Fresh Breath Of Air For A Genre Full Of Repetitious Bands

+ Retail Price: $13.99

+ 56 Minutes And 19 Seconds

+ Thanks For Reading And There’s Only Four More Records Coming Out This Year That I’m Going To Review (That I Know Of) So Look Forward To Them Later This Year. Thanks For Reading And Have A Nice Day!




Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Hanging With Friends