Continuing the History of Metal through short (trivia packed) chapters and accompanying playlists.
Thanks for all the support of Part 1 of these ongoing series! You asked me for more, here it is :)
Work in progress, will be posting irregularly (but...
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The main 80s Thrash Metal scenes were without a doubt the San Francisco Bay Area scene, the East Coast scene centered around New York City, and the Teutonic scene in Germany. There were a number of other influential scenes around the world, and one in particular was very unique: the Brazilian scene, originating from the triangle Belo Horizonte – São Paulo – Rio de Janeiro. The regional scenes of these cities all had different characteristics: the scene in Rio sounded the most similar to traditional Thrash, the bands in São Paulo incorporated more Crossover influences into their sound, and then there was Belo Horizonte...
The Belo Horizonte scene would become the regional scene that most people refer to when talking about Brazilian Thrash Metal. Playing a far more extreme version of Thrash, bands like Mutilator, Sacrófago, and of course the legendary Sepultura were heavily influenced by the Teutonic Thrash scene (a scene that was one of the key influences on the second wave of Black Metal) and were pioneering with similar Death Metal arrangements like bands as Possessed were doing in the States. Add to this mix the raw – or complete lack of – production that Metal bands had to settle for in Brazil at the time, you get a sound that feels like a hand grenade to the face.
We blast off this playlist with the anthemic 'Guerreiros do Metal' by Korzus, from the S.P. Metal II split EP (original copies are quite the collectible today). While Korzus was breaking the speed limit in São Paulo, Dorsal Atlântica was leading the charge in Rio. The Rio thrashers – although one of the first to release a proper album – would only achieve critical acclaim with the release of their late 80's classics 'Dividir & Conquistar' and 'Searching For The Light'. If we look at Brazilian Thrash records that made a profound impact beyond their native borders, we have to go back to Belo Horizonte.
First there was 'I.N.R.I.' by Sarcófago in August of 1987. The record and the bands imagery (they used corpse paint at the time) found its way all the way to Norway and was quite popular with the emerging Second Wave of Black Metal bands emerging there. A few months later, 'Schizophrenia' was released by Sepultura that propelled the classic line-up to worldwide recognition. Following album 'Beneath The Remains' cemented their status as one of the leaders of the Thrash genre. From now on Brazil would be too small for Max & Igor Cavalera, Andreas Kisser, and Paulo Jr.
In the nineties, Sepultura – and many of the Brazilian Thrash bands – were able to stay very relevant by including Alternative and Groove Metal influences into their sound. The band went on to conquer the world with the classic triumvirate of 'Arise' ('91), 'Chaos A.D.' ('93), and the smash hit 'Roots' ('96), before internal struggles caused everything to fall apart.
But let's go back to those chaotic 80's when Brazilian Thrash was new, refreshing and dangerous!
