Andreas Kisser

Andreas Kisser — Sepultura's guitarist since 1987 — is the author of much of the repertoire of the most important band in the history of Brazilian metal. He joined in time for Schizophrenia (1987), the record on which Sepultura stopped being a raw death metal band from Belo Horizonte and began playing thrash with precise execution. The difference is his: Kisser brought technique, riffs of elaborate structure and solos built on the harmony, and that is what made Beneath the Remains (1989) and Arise (1991) possible — records that placed a Brazilian band, recording in precarious conditions, in the first rank of world thrash. His contribution did not stop there. He was central to the turn of Chaos A.D. (1993) and Roots (1996), when Sepultura took in Brazilian percussion, low tunings and mid tempos, creating a vocabulary that would influence American metal for the whole following decade. After Max Cavalera's departure in 1996, he became the band's axis. He steered Sepultura for almost thirty years with Derrick Green on vocals, including concept works such as Dante XXI (2006), on the Divine Comedy, and A-Lex (2009), on A Clockwork Orange — repertoire few metal bands are willing to write.