Sepultura

Sepultura formed in 1984 in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, founded by teenage brothers Max Cavalera (vocals, guitar) and Igor Cavalera (drums) in the aftermath of their father's death. The name — Portuguese for "grave" — came from Max translating the lyrics of Motörhead's "Dancing on Your Grave". Emerging from Brazil's underground tape-trading scene and the Cogumelo Records label, the band's earliest output was deliberately savage: the 1985 split EP Bestial Devastation (shared with Overdose) and the 1986 debut Morbid Visions, records defined by primitive production, blasphemous imagery and a raw death/thrash attack that made them cult figures far beyond Brazil. The arrival of guitarist Andreas Kisser in 1987, replacing Jairo Guedz, transformed the group. Schizophrenia (1987) showed a leap in technique and songwriting, and led to a deal with Roadrunner Records. Beneath the Remains (1989), recorded in Rio de Janeiro with producer Scott Burns, was their international breakthrough, and Arise (1991) consolidated them as one of the leading thrash bands in the world — relentless, precise, and already flirting with industrial textures and Latin percussion. Chaos A.D. (1993) marked a decisive turn. The tempos slowed, the riffs became heavier and groove-driven, and the lyrics engaged directly with Brazilian reality — police violence, the Carandiru massacre, indigenous land struggles. Tracks like "Refuse/Resist", "Territory" and the acoustic percussion piece "Kaiowas" pointed toward what came next. Roots (1996), produced by Ross Robinson, pushed that fusion to its conclusion: down-tuned groove metal blended with berimbau, surdos and timbau, with Bahian musician Carlinhos Brown arranging much of the percussion. The band traveled to a Xavante community in Mato Grosso, an encounter arranged over nearly a year, and recorded the track "Itsári" ("roots" in Xavante) live in the village with tribal chants and instruments. Roots reached No. 27 on the Billboard 200 and sold over two million copies worldwide. At that commercial peak, the band fractured. In August 1996 Max Cavalera's stepson Dana Wells died in a car crash in Phoenix. Months later, the other members moved to dismiss Max's wife Gloria Cavalera as the band's manager; Max refused to continue without her and left in December 1996, after a Brixton show, in bitter circumstances that would keep the brothers estranged for a decade. He soon founded Soulfly. American vocalist Derrick Green joined in 1997, debuting on Against (1998), and went on to front Sepultura far longer than Max ever did — across Nation (2001), Roorback (2003), the Dante Alighieri concept album Dante XXI (2006), A-Lex (2009), Kairos (2011), The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart (2013), Machine Messiah (2017) and Quadra (2020). Igor Cavalera, the last founding member, quit in 2006; he and Max reconciled and formed Cavalera Conspiracy in 2007. Drum duties passed to Jean Dolabella, then Eloy Casagrande, and from 2024 to Greyson Nekrutman. No Brazilian metal band has come close to Sepultura's global reach: they carried Brazilian themes, language and percussion into arenas worldwide and opened the door for generations of Latin American extreme metal. In 2024 the band announced the "Celebrating Life Through Death" farewell tour for their 40th anniversary, launched on 1 March 2024 and running through 2026, with the final concert set for 7 November 2026 at the Arena Pacaembu in São Paulo.