Sepultura – Against

The beginning of the Kisser-led era featuring Ohio’s Derrick Green as frontman

Released in 1998, AGAINST is the first Sepultura album to not feature Max Cavalera, although his brother Igor continued in the drum department until 2006. Guitarist Andreas Kisser basically took the reins, enlisting the hulking Derrick Green from Cleveland to take over as frontman. I was skeptical that this teaming would work since Sepultura hails from Belo Horizonte & Sao Paulo, Brazil. Yet here we are 25 years later (as of this writing) and the three key members are still together: Andreas, Derrick and bassist Paulo Jr.

While there were some good albums during Max’s stint, like CHAOS A.D. (1993), I prefer the Kisser/Green era of the band. Kisser was always the superior guitarist and he has proved since Max’s departure that he & the Sep boys can continually deliver the goods album after album, many of them being creative and intricate concept albums. Several of them are great, such as NATION (2001) and MACHINE MESSAIAH (2017), my two personal favorites, but all of them are nice ‘n’ versatile.

AGAINST was the first stab and it works just enough to show that the band could successfully move on. While Green has proven himself a formidable vocalist and frontman for the band (superior to Max, actually), the three best tracks on AGAINST are all stunning instrumentals—“Kamaitachi,” “Tribus” and the closer “T3RCERMillenniuma.” The best song with Derrick is the longest, “Hatred Aside,” which features Jason Newsted, still in Metallica at the time, on baritone guitar, percussion, theremin and vocals.

The rest of the songs are relatively short bursts of tribalistic energy.

Although AGAINST is good, it was just a hint of the mind-blowing greatness to come.

The fifteen tracks clock-in at about 47.5 minutes.

GRADE: B/B+