Another good album from the most important Brazilian Metal band of all time.

If there’s one thing that can be considered a true innovation in the new Sepultura album is its name: The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart is by far their most complex and longest album name ever. Take a look at their discography (if you’ve never seen it) and you’ll notice all albums have very short and direct names, such as Arise, Roots, Against, Nation, Roorback and Kairos. However, despite its creative name, the album doesn’t really bring anything new to the world of heavy music. It’s a good album with some interesting moments, but nothing that can be considered “above and beyond”.

I enjoyed a lot the opening track, Trauma of War. In my opinion, it has an excellent intro and reminds me of some insane 80’s Thrash Metal! The Vatican, the second track of the album, also has a cool intro, strong lyrics and sounds like classic Death Metal in most of its 6 minutes. Then that’s when the problems start with The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart: all the other songs sound very similar to each other. Impending Doom is one of the closest tracks to what Sepultura has been doing in the past few years, but it becomes quite boring after 2 minutes. Manipulation of Tragedy has the same problem as the previous track, while Tsunami might remind me a little of the old “Chaos A.D./Roots” days but this doesn’t make the song remarkable. The next track,The Bliss of Ignorants, has very “Roots” intro and riffs and this could have evolved to something more interesting. And Grief starts with a very clean guitar that goes on for about 2 minutes, then it becomes Doom Metal-like and that’s it, nothing special.

The last three songs raise the bar a little: The Age of the Atheist (the first single of the album) has awesome drums and it’s a perfect representation of Sepultura post-Roots; Obsessed has the best Metal drummer in the world, Mr. Dave Lombardo, as a special guest, and of course he adds a lot of feeling to the song with his unique technique; and the last track of the album, called Da Lama ao Caos, is a superb version for a song from a non-Metal Brazilian group called Chico Science & Nação Zumbi (it’s way better than the original song, by the way).

Regarding the job done by each band member, Derrick keeps singing like a caveman inside a cave fighting with a saber tooth (or vice-versa). Although his voice will never be as good as Max Cavalera’s, it works well for what the band needs nowadays. Eloy Casagrande is improving his drumming technique year after year, becoming faster and more violent, Paulo does a consistent job on bass, and Andreas shows why he’s the best Brazilian guitar player of all time.

The cover art matches perfectly with the album name, and maybe this is the best thing in its entirety. I’m not saying it’s a bad album, not at all. It’s pretty straight forward Heavy Metal material and I do love all music from Sepultura. It’s just that I know those guys can do better than this.

Best moments of the album: Trauma of War, The Vatican and Da Lama ao Caos.

Worst moments of the album: Impending Doom, Manipulation of Tragedy and Grief.

Released in 2013 Nuclear Blast

Track listing
1. Trauma of War 3:45
2. The Vatican 6:33
3. Impending Doom 4:15
4. Manipulation of Tragedy 4:16
5. Tsunami 5:10
6. The Bliss of Ignorants 4:51
7. Grief 5:34
8. The Age of the Atheist 4:19
9. Obsessed (feat. Dave Lombardo) 3:53
10. Da Lama ao Caos (Chico Science & Nação Zumbi cover) 4:28

Band members
Derrick Green − lead vocals
Andreas Kisser − guitars, vocals on “Da Lama ao Caos”
Paulo Jr. − bass guitar
Eloy Casagrande – drums