Opening incredibly early and boasting a preposterous lineup, Sepultura have finally arrived in Manchester for what could be their final UK shows. Sepultura have created some of the most beloved death/thrash metal ever made throughout their 40-year career and it’s only appropriate that Manchester honours that with 6 hours of heavy metal insanity before Sepultura is lowered into the ground to be at peace. Jinjer, Obituary and Jesus Piece were also here to celebrate.
Jesus Piece were first up and despite being the smallest band on the bill, they delivered a devastating right hook that got the whole crowd riled and ready for a violent night of metal. It’s a shame that the doors were so earlier and many people didn’t get a chance to experience Jesus Piece but the smaller crowd made for a more intimate experience.
Jesus Piece a hardcore band, you can tell this from the influx of slow sludgy breakdowns that make up a massive portion of the set. It’s easy to get lost in their set and from an unprepared listener, the songs can sound very similar but the vibe is just aggressive and unhinged enough to be captivating. The band had that dodgeball snare sound that left my skeleton rattling as some of the most punishing music of the night filled the room.
It’s appropriate that the guitarist is wearing a Morbid Angel shirt as you can hear the slow punishing steamroller riffing at work in between the moments of breakneck insanity. Jesus Piece are a band I’d never heard of before this show but they’ve earned a new fan, highly recommended.
Next up was Florida death metal legends, Obituary. This was my 4th time seeing Obituary and I must admit, ‘Redneck Stomp’ as an opener has become a bit tiring. The riffing is still great and I’d always welcome it on the setlist but just once, I’d like to hear them come out swinging to something like ‘Chopped In Half’ or ‘Find The Arise’ but there’s little chance of that happening in the future.
Minor grips aside, this show had Obituary firing on all cylinders; ‘The Wrong Time’ demonstrates that the band can still deliver modern tracks and have them live up to the crushing intensity of classics like ‘Threatening Skies’ and ‘Turned Inside Out’. The greatest weapon of Obituary is the groove, tracks like ‘Deadly Intention’ and the gunfire-laden modern banger ‘War’ show off a mid-tempo groove that many death metal bands tend to ignore in favour of a violent breakneck assault. Obituary one-ups them all and does both.
Donald Tardy’s drumming is utterly monstrous. The primitive caveman death metal sound is improved by the thunderous punchy drum sound. The intro to ‘Chopped In Half’ is enough to crush skulls into dust, and working in tandem with John Tardy’s primal vocals, it’s the recipe for total evisceration.
Their set ended with their greatest accomplishment and one of the most important songs in death metal, ‘Slowly We Rot’. The fuzzy guitar tone and slow buildup gives this feeling of doom before the inevitable attack begins. Obituary may be far into their career but they’re far from rotten and if you’re dying to hear more, you can catch them again on their headline tour this December.
The final support of the night was Jinjer, arguably one of the most important bands to come out of Ukraine. Straight out of the gate, it’s clear that vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk is the best vocalist of the entire show, her cleans are beautiful and her screams are ferocious and boast amazing clarity and technique.
The rhythm section is airtight, you can feel the Meshuggah influence on tracks like ‘Ape’ with its groovy bendy breakdowns. Eight-string guitars are a paradox, they’re supposed to give more range but they end up limiting creativity but Jinjer utilise as much of the higher range as they can which creates a bombastic contrast once the heavier sections kick in.
There’s so much variety in their set, the borderline rap verses of ‘Teacher, Teacher’ flow brilliantly as the rhythm section creates this amazing groove behind them before the blast beats kick in and lay waste to everyone in the room. ‘Someone’s Daughter’ has a Lacuna Coil feel with its dark and moody tone which feels completely unique to anything else I’ve previously heard from Jinjer.
Their set ended with the highly progressive and unpredictable ‘Perennial’. This song takes so many bizarre twists and turns but still showcases a sense of songwriting focus that few can imitate. For many, Jinjer was the reason they came to the show and they gave Sepultura an incredibly difficult act to follow.
Heralded by one of the most incredible percussion intros in metal history, Sepultura came on to ‘Refuse/Resist’. The one-two punch of ‘Refuse/Resist’ and ‘Territory’ may be confusing to some considering they’re both perfect encore tracks but the blunt force trauma these tracks can induce, makes it a perfect first strike. The primal scream of “Manchester, this is your f*cking Territory” got so many people ready for war and that’s exactly what this set became: a war zone.
The set was largely filled with early classics like ‘Escape the Void,’ ‘Troops of Doom’ and ‘Inner Self’ which acted as a best of classic Sepultura portion of the set as well as a laundry list of iconic death/thrash songs throughout the years. These tracks also helped demonstrate to people just how good of a frontman Derrick Greene is, his stage presence is amazing as he dances around the stage while also being a formidable tank of a man. Regardless of how loyal you may be to the Cavalera’s, you have to admit Derrick can hold his own with these tracks.
It’s refreshing how many people were praising their latest album, Quadra, when it first came out and all the progressive elements that came from it. ‘Guardians of Earth’ make use of tribal drumming, acoustic guitars and deal with heavy subject matter like the treatment of indigenous people across the world and feature this heavy sense of dread and doom, a feeling that Sepultura have mastered in the latter parts of their career.
The latter half of Sepultura’s career is grossly underrated and so it’s fantastic to see so many people reacting positively to tracks like the destructive ‘False,’ the groove metal swagger of ‘Kairos’ and the nu metal adjacent ‘Choke’. Personally, I don’t think they included nearly enough post-Cavalera songs but it’s understandable that they stuck to new songs and the classics, the audience for tracks from Roorback and Nation are unfortunately limited despite my best efforts of spreading the word.
It’s sad to think that this could be the last change to scream “under a pale grey sky we shall Arise” in Manchester, the last chance to experience the greatest breakdown ever written in the form of ‘Dead Embryonic Cells’ and the last chance to feel that chilling intro from ‘Slave New World’ live with Sepultura themselves but the audience recognised this and made the most of it.
Drummer Greyson Nekrutman is a worthy stand-in for Eloy Casagrande, he has all the power and agility you’d need for a Sepultura set. His interpretations of the Latin groove of ‘Phantom Self’ work brilliantly and it feels like he’s been a part of this outfit for years. Sepultura requires a worldliness that most drummers just don’t have, they can get stuck in Western drumming conventions and timings but Guy Namington is able to match that experimental nature on tracks like ‘Ratamahatta,’ which even featured a mini drum solo beforehand.
The set ended with ‘Roots, Bloody Roots,’ a song so simple and abrasive it transcends language and musical conventions and becomes a primal scream. It’s such a violently aggressive song but makes such a poignant argument about connecting to what makes you human and for many of us, what makes us human is our connection to music and for one final time, thousands of us joined together to slam our heads back and forth for the breakdown as we said our final goodbyes to Sepultura.
Sepultura are one of the most important extreme metal bands to exist and have done so much work in spreading our understanding of music in other cultures while keeping our beloved metal alive. We can only thank them for their service and pray that Andreas, Paolo, Derrick and Greyson are successful in their future endeavours and hopefully, they can all bury the hatchet with the Cavalera’s in the future.
