SEPULTURA: 'Mediator' Track-By-Track Breakdown

Guitarist Andreas Kisser of Brazilian/American metallers SEPULTURA recently gave the Brazilian newspaper Diario de Pernambuco a track-by-track breakdown of the band's new album, "The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart", which will be released on October 25 via Nuclear Blast Records. Check it out below.

"Intro"

Andreas: "Actually, the intro is the demo we did just before we went to the studio, with all the songs played at the same time! It's like you are listening to all the songs that you will hear separately on the album at once. It sounds so great, noisy and powerful and it was a result of an accident that I had on my computer. Each song had its track so when I accidentally played the tracks together they came strong and beautiful so I decided to show the guys and they all liked it!"

"Trauma Of War"

Andreas: "This will be the first song on the album and is one of the fastest and most brutal songs we ever did. The performance of our drummer, Eloy [Casagrande], is fantastic, it gave such an energy to the song that the guitars, bass and vocals had to top that level of brutality, for sure our strongest opener so far. I wrote the lyrics inspired by friends that went to war and came back with some kind of trauma, some kind of disturbance that they have to live with for the rest of their lives."

"The Vatican"

Andreas: "An ironic tribute to the conclave that elected Argentinian Pope Francis I as the successor of Benedict XVI. This track has some death metal influences. The lyric tells the story of how the Vatican was created, filled with blood, orgy, murders, corruption, adultery. It's one of the most evil and perverse lyrics I ever wrote."

"Impending Doom"

Andreas: "Song with a very slowed tempo, with heavy picks and a low-tuned rhythm. Its nickname was 'Puxada', because of the guitar's riff characteristic. This track is very heavy. The lyrics are Derrick's [Green, vocals]. And it talks about cursed inheritances that are left from generation to generation. What world we are going to leave for ours heirs?"

"Manipulation Of Tragedy"

Andreas: "Another of Derrick's lyric. Talks about collective manipulation through a culture of fear, creating tragic and drastic situations in order to justify certain decisions made by the governors, legitimizing some limitations to the society. The manufactured consent. The song was born from Eloy's double-bass drumming rhythm. It sounds very SEPULTURA, with influence from several periods of the band."

"Tsunami"

Andreas: "Derrick wrote the lyrics for it, part inspired by the natural phenomena and part by the 'tsunami' of information we receive nowadays through the worldwide web and the media in general. A tsunami is the most powerful force of nature, stronger than any earthquake, tornado or a storm. It simply destroys everything in its path. The result is total destruction but also total cleanup, a new beginning."

"The Bliss Of Ignorants"

Andreas: "Derrick's lyric. It's about the illusion created in society that we are free to do whatever we want, but, in fact, it is not like that. Freedom is limited and part of the society lives under ignorance, euphoric, without awareness of everything that surrounds us. The song opens with percussive drum, low tuning and groovy sound. Its nickname was 'Brasuca'. It's kind of a mix of 'Roots' and 'Chaos A.D.' rhythm. Ross [Robinson, producer] influenced us to explore more this Brazilian side. With participation of percussionist Fred Ortiz (BEASTIE BOYS' former drummer who plays with Derrick in MAXIMUM HEDRUM)."

"Grief"

Andreas: "It is a song that starts with clean guitars in a way that we never attempted before, I think it was our biggest challenge on this album and it came out amazing. I wrote the song inspired by a tragic incident that happened in Brazil in January 2013. More than 200 kids died in a fire inside a night club. The place didn't have the proper emergency exits and most of the people died asphyxiated, it was horrible. The small town at the south of the country, where most of the people were from, was in total grief. I wrote this song to honor the victims and their families."

"The Age Of The Atheist"

Andreas: "This is a song I wrote inspired by the hard times we live today and how difficult is to believe in things. So many theories of conspiracies against the official reports that make your head turn with so much confusion, all religions that are pushing each other away like never before, making disagreements instead of unity. We have to believe in our strength. We, as people, have the power to change everything and we are losing this belief, becoming numb and hopeless."

"Obsessed"

Andreas: "Deals with the shopping anxiety. The compulsive purchase of unnecessary goods and the consequent accumulation of things produced by the unruled and uncontrolled thirst. People do not worry with the origin of what they consume. There is an eternal search for satisfaction through the consumption, preventing people from evolving in the way that they should. This is the track that has the participation of Dave Lombardo [former SLAYER drummer], a fill on the song with Dave's rhythmic characteristics. It's a great honor having this idol and master in our song."

Although it was inspired by Fritz Lang's classic 1927 movie "Metropolis", "The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart" is not a concept album or a soundtrack like its precedessors "Dante XXI" (based on "The Divine Comedy") and "A-Lex" (based on "A Clockwork Orange").

"The Mediator Between The Head And Hands Must Be The Heart" was tracked over a 40-day period at producer Ross Robinson's (KORN, LIMP BIZKIT, SLIPKNOT) studio in Venice, California and is being mixed and mastered by co-producer Steve Evetts, who previously worked with SEPULTURA on the "Nation" (2001),"Revolusongs" (2002) and "Roorback" (2003) albums, in addition to having collaborated with Ross on a number of other projects in the past.