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Artist: Sepultura
Album: Arise
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release Date: April 1991
Total Tracks: 9
Rating: 4/5
Purchase this album

I’m pretty sure that this was one of my first ever death metal purchases back in the day. Along with Malevolent Creation‘s Ten Commandments and a few other early tapes, Sepultura‘s Arise was played constantly on the tape deck in my room. I remember the cover art for this album is what initially drew me to it. I hadn’t been into death metal long enough to have heard their previous releases Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation and Beneath the Remains, so Arise was my first introduction to the band.

And what a way to get into a band. This album has some of my all time favorite Sepultura songs on it — songs I still love hearing to this day.

Looking back on this album and those that preceded it, Arise marked a shift in the band’s sound. The truly guttural growls that Max Cavalera belted out on Beneath the Remains had become more discernable and more commercially listenable. Arise‘s shift in sound wasn’t completely molded until their best known album, Chaos AD.

Even though the band’s sound was evolving, this album still brought the super thrashy, tribal riffs and pounding death metal that made me a long time fan of the genre. I know it’s not their best album, and it’s probably due to it being one of the first death metal albums I ever purchased, but Arise has become one of those records for me that I just cannot do without. All nostalgia aside, if you’ve got this album in the stable and it’s collecting dust, break it out and crank it up!

Favorite Tracks:
Arise
Dead Embryonic Cells
Subtraction
Infected Voice

Additional Notes:
“Orgasmatron” is a great Motorhead cover.