SEPULTURA

SEPULTURA
Biography

Sepultura are a metal band formed in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 1984. Their name is the Portuguese word for grave. They began in a place almost entirely cut off from the international music industry of the mid-1980s, and from Beneath the Remains in 1989 they became known across the world. On Chaos A.D. in 1993 and Roots in 1996 they took in Brazilian percussion and indigenous music, and settled the direction that came to be called groove metal. There are fifteen studio albums, from Morbid Visions in 1986 to Quadra in 2020, and the 2026 EP The Cloud of Unknowing is their last recording. Their sales worldwide are reported at about twenty million. By their own account they have played in eighty countries and hold gold and platinum records in France, Australia, Indonesia, the United States and Brazil. They announced in December 2023 that they were ending, and have been on a farewell tour since March 2024.

The band and the first records (1984-1987)

The brothers Max and Igor Cavalera started the band in 1984 in Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais. Max thought of the name while translating the words of Motörhead's "Dancing on Your Grave": the Portuguese for grave became the name as it stood.

The first line-up included Wagner Lamounier on vocals and Roberto Raffan on bass, and both left before the band made a recording; Lamounier went on to start Sarcófago. The brothers carried on with Max singing as well as playing rhythm guitar, Paulo Jr. on bass and Jairo Guedz on lead guitar.

Their first recording was the 1985 split with Overdose, Bestial Devastation, on the local label Cogumelo. The first album, Morbid Visions, followed on the same label in November 1986 and Schizophrenia in October 1987. The members were in their teens and were writing English lyrics with a dictionary, a word at a time.

Jairo Guedz left early in 1987 and Andreas Kisser came in that year. Kisser brought traditional heavy metal vocabulary and a more melodic way of playing, and changed the character of the band's sound from Schizophrenia on. Those four — Max, Igor, Kisser and Paulo Jr. — were the band for the next ten years.

Known outside Brazil (1988-1996)

They signed to Roadrunner Records and recorded Beneath the Remains at Nas Nuvens Studio in Rio de Janeiro in December 1988, produced and engineered by Scott Burns. Burns took the job for a reduced fee because he wanted to visit Brazil, and brought with him equipment that was not obtainable there at the time. The album, released in 1989, is the record on which a Brazilian band became known internationally.

Arise followed in 1991, recorded with Burns again at Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida. It was received on both the death metal and the thrash metal sides and is counted among their best-known work.

On Chaos A.D. in 1993 they slowed down and put Brazilian percussion and the hand of hardcore to the front. It was recorded at Rockfield Studios in South Wales and produced by Andy Wallace. Roots in 1996 went further: they travelled to a Xavante village in Mato Grosso and recorded with the people there. Ross Robinson produced it and Carlinhos Brown arranged the percussion.

Max Cavalera leaves and Derrick Green arrives (1996-1998)

Max Cavalera left the band after European dates late in 1996, and started Soulfly the following year. Without a singer, the band took on Derrick Green, from Ohio, in 1997.

Green's first record with them is Against in 1998, produced by Howard Benson and recorded in eight studios including rooms in São Paulo, California and on Sado Island in Japan; the taiko group Kodo, who are based on Sado, play on the twelfth song, "Kamaitachi". Nation in 2001 carries a long list of guests including Jello Biafra and Apocalyptica, and was their last record for Roadrunner.

The concept records (2003-2020)

From Roorback in 2003 they were on SPV, and two albums there were built on books: Dante XXI in 2006 on Dante's Divine Comedy and A-Lex in 2009 on Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Dante XXI is the last album the founding drummer Igor Cavalera played on; he left in 2006 and Jean Dolabella took over until 2011.

From Kairos in 2011 they were on Nuclear Blast. Eloy Casagrande, who joined that year, played from The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart in 2013 through Quadra in 2020. All three records of that period work from a stated subject: Machine Messiah from the robotisation of society and Quadra from the medieval quadrivium and the number four. Jens Bogren produced the last two of them.

The farewell tour (2023-2026)

On 1 December 2023 the band announced on their own site that they were bringing their work to an end. The tour is called the 40 Years Farewell Tour, "Celebrating Life Through Death". Their statement describes ending forty years of work as a conscious and planned death, sets out a plan to record forty live tracks in forty cities, and closes on the line "Euthanasia, the right to a dignified death. The right to choose to live free and to choose when you die!"

The tour began on 1 March 2024. The announcement spoke of "the next 18 months"; in the event it has run longer, and the last date on the band's own tour list is 7 November 2026 at the Suhai Music Hall in São Paulo. No Japanese date is part of it.

Eloy Casagrande left in February 2024 and joined Slipknot. By the band's own announcement, Greyson Nekrutman took over on 27 February 2024. He plays on the farewell tour and on the April 2026 EP The Cloud of Unknowing, which is the band's last studio recording.

About the members

The band is now Derrick Green on vocals, Andreas Kisser on guitar, Paulo Jr. on bass and Greyson Nekrutman on drums. Paulo Jr. has been there since 1984 and is the only member credited on every record; Kisser, from 1987, has been there second longest.

The band's own site gives each of the four a birth name and a date. Derrick Leon Green was born on 21 January 1971 in Cleveland, Ohio; Andreas Rudolf Kisser on 24 August 1968 in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo; Paulo Xisto Pinto Júnior on 30 April 1969 in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais; and Greyson Jay Nekrutman on 13 June 2002 on Long Island, New York.

Among the former members are Max Cavalera, who sang and played guitar from 1984 to 1996, Igor Cavalera, who played drums from 1984 to 2006, Jairo Guedz, who played lead guitar until early 1987, Jean Dolabella from 2006 to 2011 and Eloy Casagrande from 2011 to 2024. Wagner Lamounier and Roberto Raffan, who left before the first recording, were founding members too.

Discography

Fifteen studio albums and one EP. The running orders, the CD details and the liner notes for each are on its own page, reachable from the album list on this page.

Year	Title	Label
1986	Morbid Visions	Cogumelo
1987	Schizophrenia	Cogumelo
1989	Beneath the Remains	Roadrunner
1991	Arise	Roadrunner
1993	Chaos A.D.	Roadrunner
1996	Roots	Roadrunner
1998	Against	Roadrunner
2001	Nation	Roadrunner
2003	Roorback	SPV/Steamhammer
2006	Dante XXI	SPV
2009	A-Lex	SPV
2011	Kairos	Nuclear Blast
2013	The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart	Nuclear Blast
2017	Machine Messiah	Nuclear Blast
2020	Quadra	Nuclear Blast
2026	The Cloud of Unknowing (EP)	Nuclear Blast

Besides these there are the 1985 split with Overdose, Bestial Devastation, the EPs Third World Posse (1992) and Third World Chaos (1995), the covers record Revolusongs (2002), SepulQuarta (2021), which came out of the programme they streamed during the pandemic, and several live albums and compilations.

Concerts in Japan

Two concerts could be dated.

The first is 25 August 2001, the opening day of Beast Feast 2001 at Yokohama Arena — a two-day festival on 25 and 26 August with thirty bands. Slayer closed the Saturday and Sepultura were billed next on it, with Static-X, Vision of Disorder, United, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Raging Speedhorn, Shadows Fall, Candiria and Caliban on the same day; Pantera closed the Sunday. Arch Enemy were announced for this day and did not play, their singer having lost her voice.

The second is 23 May 2018 at duo MUSIC EXCHANGE in Shibuya, a show of their own on the Machine Messiah world tour. Doors at 18:30 and on stage at 19:00, 7,500 yen in advance with the drink charge separate, with the Japanese band United opening and Ward Live Media presenting. The announcement described it as their first Japanese concert for seventeen years, which agrees with Beast Feast in 2001 having been the last.

About the sources

What is written here rests on the band's own website (the band members page, the band biography, the farewell announcement and the tour list), two concert announcements from BARKS, the MusicBrainz release data for each record, the release information from Nuclear Blast and Ward Records, and the English and Japanese Wikipedia articles for the band and for each album. The members' birth names and dates, the date of the farewell announcement, the name of the tour, and the last announced concert with its venue all come from the band's own site. No performer's name and no concert date here is a guess. Where two sources disagree about a record's day, that is stated on the record's own page, reachable from the album list on this page.