Sepultura

December 16, 1996, is a night that will live in Brazilian death-metal infamy. Moments after stepping offstage at a London concert hall, Sepultura singer and guitarist Max Cavalera announced he was departing the group he had founded twelve years earlier. At issue was Cavalera’s marriage to band manager Gloria Bujnowski, with whom the rest of the group was unhappy. That Bujnowski and Cavalera were still mourning the loss of Bujnowski’s teen-age son only made the tense situation even thornier.

Though that year proved to be the classic lineup’s last, it was also its most artistically accomplished. Cavalera’s final Sepultura effort, Roots, created new possibilities for metal, exploring world rhythms with help from tribal percussionists. Sepultura played ten of Roots‘ sixteen tracks at its last waltz, with the band relying on brutal force to make up for the lack of tub-thumping sidemen.

Sepultura earned a reputation as one of the heaviest bands on the planet, and Grey Sky Polaroids the outfit at the zenith of its musical powers. Spanning the group’s history, the set includes everything from a full-speed-a-shred rendition of 1986’s “Troops of Doom” to 1993’s “Biotech is Godzilla.” The fate of Sepultura is well-known: the Max-free band soldiers on with Cleveland native Derrick Green at the helm while Cavalera searches for sonic globalization as Soulfly’s frontman. But neither outfit retained the original lineup’s high-octane gristle, which Grey Sky captures in all its throttling glory.