Rock Monsters Romania

The RM Award for The Album Of The Month (February 2020) goes to “Quadra” from Sepultura.

“Quadra” is the 15th studio album by Sepultura. It was released on February 7th. Sepultura is a Brazilian heavy metal band from Belo Horizonte, formed in 1984. The band has had several lineup changes throughout its existence, with Max and Igor Cavalera departing in 1996 and 2006, respectively. The current lineup consists of vocalist Derrick Green, guitarist Andreas Kisser, bassist Paulo Jr. and drummer Eloy Casagrande.

“Quadra” is a concept album based on numerology, the number four and its significance as depicted on Quadrivium. The band went to Sweden to work with producer Jens Bogren for the recording of this album. It is Sepultura’s most successful record since 1998’s “Against”, charting in 17 countries ane entering the top 20 in 7 countries.

Guitarist Andreas Kisser explained that the concept of the album is based on Quadrivium, which are the four subjects, or arts (namely arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), taught after teaching the trivium. Based on this, the band divided the 12-track album into four sections of three songs each. The first being thrash metal songs, based on the classic Sepultura sound. The second section is inspired by the groove-percussion oriented sound the band explored in “Roots”. The third part has more progressive songs inspired by the track “Iceberg Dances” from “Machine Messiah”, but is not all instrumental tracks. Side four features slow-paced and melodic tracks, similar to the song “Machine Messiah”.

When Derrick Green was asked during an interview with BraveWords “Which Sepultura album are you most proud of?”, he replied, “Definitely Quadra. It’s the latest album, and we really worked so hard on it. We have so many different elements from the past that have helped us get to here – where we are at right now. So, without a doubt in my mind, this is the strongest album that we’ve done together. And I’m extremely proud of it.”

Listen to Sepultura’s 15th album on Spotify.

Article by Stefania Marinescu