Beneath the Remains
| Beneath the Remains | ||||
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| Studio album from Sepultura | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Roadrunner Records | |||
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
42 min 10 s (original) |
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Studio (s) |
Nas Nuvens Studio, Rio de Janeiro |
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Beneath the Remains ( English for Under the remains is) the third studio album by Brazilian thrash metal band Sepultura . It was released on May 7, 1989 via Roadrunner Records and was the band's first release for the company. The album brought the band the worldwide breakthrough and sold over 600,000 copies worldwide.
Emergence
Switch to Roadrunner
The previous album Schizophrenia was quite successful in Brazil and sold over 15,000 times. The good sales aroused the interest of Monte Connor, who had only recently started as an A&R at Roadrunner Records. His attempts to get in touch with the band turned out to be difficult as the musicians lived in Brazil and beyond that spoke little English . A friend of the band members helped Sepultura translate letters and act as an interpreter for phone calls. Singer Max Cavalera then decided to take matters into his own hands to fly to New York City and audition in person at various record labels .
Since Cavalera had no money for the flight, he accepted an offer from a friend who worked for the Pan Am airline and offered him a free flight. In return, Cavalera was supposed to take some records and give them to a specific person in the USA . Although Cavalera was sure he should be doing something illegal , he agreed. Cavalera flew to New York City on February 29, 1988 with ten copies of the Schizophrenia album. In order not to attract any further attention, he dressed like a businessman in a suit and tie and listed his records on Roadrunner, Noise Records and Combat Records in New York City .
Monte Connor remembered laughing himself half-dead at Cavalera's clothing, but received the green light for a contract with the band from his supervisor, Cees Wessels. Connor faced many obstacles before signing the contract. Since the band came from Brazil and the musicians were still quite young - Max Cavalera was 19, his brother Igor only 18 years old - Roadrunner Records didn't know whether the contracts were even legally binding. To be on the safe side, Connor had the contract signed with the band translated into Portuguese and certified by the Brazilian embassy in the USA . After Realm, Sepultura were only the second band that Connor signed for Roadrunner.
Songwriting
With the new contract behind them, the band wanted to design their songwriting differently than in the past. With the first two releases Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions Sepultura had copied a lot from European bands like Celtic Frost and Destruction . Some of the musicians took over passages from their lyrics to cover up the fact that none of the band members spoke good English. According to guitarist Andreas Kisser , the new contract spurred the band on in a creative way. The musicians renovated their rehearsal room in Belo Horizonte and practiced the new material there every day. The band also took space for experiments such as B. the acoustic part in the song Mass Hypnosis . The first half of the song Slaves of Pain came from Andreas Kisser's former band Pestilence.
Many of the lyrics on the album Beneath the Remains deal with the subject of war or are anti-war songs. Max Cavalera was strongly influenced by the U2 album War . Another influence was a T-shirt from the band Corrosion of Conformity with the imprint “Who has won, when nothing remains?” (Eng. Who has won when nothing remains ). In the song Inner Self , Max Cavalera describes his feelings when he walks through the streets of his homeland and the hatred he feels for what is happening in the world. However, Max Cavalera later openly admitted that with some of the songs he no longer knows what the lyrics are about or what the songs mean, although he wrote the lyrics himself.
Recordings
For the album, the band received a comparatively small budget of $ 8,000 , which was ultimately overdrawn by the same amount. The recordings took place from December 15 to 28, 1988 in the Nas Nuvens Studio in Rio de Janeiro, not far from Copacabana . This is the largest recording studio in Brazil. The band worked from midnight to eight in the morning, as the studio was occupied by a pop band during the day . As producers , the band undertook the Americans Scott Burns , who in the early 1990s to gefragtesten producer of Death was and thrash metal scene. Since Burns was curious about Brazil, he asked for a comparatively small fee of $ 2,000. Burns' hotel room was robbed during the first day of the studio. Thieves stole his boom box and various items of clothing.
Bassist Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr. cannot be heard on the album. According to Andreas Kisser, Pinto jr. Had many problems during the studio recordings, which were more psychological than technical in nature, as Pinto was always very nervous in the studio . In addition, the band had little time to spare and only allowed a day or two for the bass recordings. While Max Cavalera later claimed that he and Andreas Kisser recorded the bass on Beneath the Remains , Andreas Kisser contradicted this and states that, as on the albums Schizophrenia and Arise, he recorded the bass alone. Only on Chaos AD would Pinto jr. even played the bass.
Because communication between the band and producers was difficult due to the language barrier , Burns was provided with an interpreter. Since the band was unable to record all of the vocal passages in Brazil, Max Cavalera traveled to Scott Burns in Florida in January 1989 to record the rest. John Tardy from the band Obituary and Kelly Shaefer from the band Atheist appear as guest vocalists on the song Stronger Than Hate . Shaefer also wrote the lyrics of the song. All other texts were written by Max Cavalera and Andreas Kisser. The album was supposed to contain only eight songs. According to A&R Monte Connor, he had to beg his boss Cees Wessels to make some money for the song Primitive Future . Beneath the Remains was mixed by Scott Burns and Tom Morris.
publication
The album cover was designed by the American artist Michael Whelan and is titled "Nightmare in Red" (Eng .: nightmare in red ). Without the band being informed, Roadrunner Records printed a changed band logo on the cover. Originally wanted the picture Sepultura "bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre" (dt. Scary stories of horror and the macabre ) for Beneath the Remains use. According to Andreas Kisser, Roadrunner did not accept this picture because the label was of the opinion that the picture would not fit the album. A year later, the band Obituary used the originally intended cover motif for their album Cause of Death .
The band thought about the order of the songs on the album for a long time. Inspired by the Metallica album Ride the Lightning , Sepultura decided to put the fast title song introduced by an acoustic intro first and then followed by a more groovy song with Inner Self . Beneath the Remains was released on April 7, 1989. It was the first album in the band's history that was released worldwide. For the song Inner Self , the band shot their first music video , directed by Aurelio Diaz. On January 10, 1997, a remastered version of the album by George Marino was released, which includes three bonus tracks. In addition to a cover version of the song A Hora ea Vez do Cabelo Nascer by the band Os Mutantes, there are so-called drum tracks of the songs Inner Self and Mass Hypnosis .
reception
While the first two albums by the European trade press panned and sardonic were provided comments received Beneath the Remains first positive reviews. Sometimes the album has been compared to Slayer's Reign in Blood . Eduardo Rivadavia from the online magazine Allmusic described Beneath the Remains as "one of the most essential death / thrash metal albums". The magazine Terrorizer counted Beneath the Remains in 2003 among the 20 best thrash metal albums of all time. In January 2013, Decibel magazine inducted Beneath the Remains into their Hall of Fame . Sepultura became the first band to be represented there with two albums after the album Roots had already been recorded.
In the book Best of Rock & Metal by the German magazine Rock Hard , which according to the editors lists the 500 strongest metal and hard rock albums of all time, Beneath the Remains took 99th place. According to Andreas Stappert, “the band showed the Trade press, where the hammer really hangs in Thrash Metal ”and presented an album with which Sepultura“ could easily stand up to a band like Slayer ”. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the album's release, Rock Hard paid tribute to the album with an eight-page article in which, in addition to the protagonists of the time, numerous companions also have their say. Publisher Holger Stratmann described Beneath the Remains as a milestone in metal history, as it was the first major album that did not originate in Europe, Japan or North America.
Track list
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1 bonus track from the 1997 remastered re-release .
Web links
- Beneath the Remains on Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Conny Schiffbauer: Thrashin 'Brazil . In: Rock Hard , March 2008, p. 72 ff.
- ↑ Holger Stratmann (Ed.): Rock Hard Mania . Rock Hard, Dortmund 2004, ISBN 3-9805171-5-2 , pp. 93 .
- ↑ a b c d e Ronny Bittner: The deal with Roadrunner spurred our creativity on . In: Rock Hard, April 2019, pages 18-19
- ↑ a b c d Conny Schiffbauer: At least nobody died in the tour bus . In: Rock Hard, April 2019, pages 15-17
- ^ A b André Barcinski, Silvio Gomes: Sepultura: Toda a História . Ed. 34, São Paulo 1999, ISBN 85-7326-156-0 , pp. 60-69 .
- ↑ a b Holger Stratmann: Max put on a suit and tie so as not to attract attention at the border . In: Rock Hard, April 2019, pages 20-21
- ↑ A Megaton Hit Parade: The All-Time Thrash Top 20 . In: Terrorizer , edition 109, p. 34 f.
- ↑ Chris Dick: Sepultura - “Beneath the Remains”. Decibel , accessed March 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Rock Hard (Ed.): Best of Rock & Metal - The 500 strongest discs of all time . Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2005, ISBN 3-89880-517-4 , p. 183 .
- ↑ Holger Stratmann: Damned far away . In: Rock Hard, April 2019, page 14
- ↑ Release: Beneath the Remains. musicbrainz.org
- ↑ Sepultura - Beneath The Remains (CD, album, RM). discogs.com