Sepultura’s “Troops of Doom” is a sleeper classic. With a strong Celtic Frost influence, it’s short and sweet and does everything in all the right places. As Sepultura’s oldest “hit,” it remains in the band’s set lists to this day. Thus, live videos of it show the band’s evolution in all aspects — personnel, equipment, even hair styles. Here are four from back in the day.
- – -
Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 1986
The band is almost unrecognizable here in its youth. Max Cavalera, playing an Explorer, is a lean, hungry headbanger. His brother Igor has huge hair, and Andreas Kisser has not joined the band yet. Original lead guitarist Jairo Guedes is stage right with the big ‘fro.
El Paso, Texas, 1990
By now, Andreas Kisser has been in the band for three years, and it is obviously stronger for it. (Arise would come out the following year.) Max breaks a string, and while he changes guitars, Kisser fills in on vocals. That middle triplet section sounds deadly here.
Materia Prima, Brazil, ???
This is a live appearance on some Brazilian TV show. The date is unidentified, but I’ll place it around 1991’s Arise, as Max Cavalera is playing the same white guitar he’s playing in the video for “Arise.” I love the random phrases that pop up on the screen: METAL PESADO (“heavy metal”) and METAL LETHAL (self-explanatory).
San Jose, CA, 1994
Chaos A.D. had come out, and with custom amp cabinets, the band was clearly doing well. It was in its “baggy shorts” phase. I saw the band twice around this time. The first time was with Clutch, Fudge Tunnel, and Fear Factory; the second was with Prong and Pantera. Both times, Sepultura stole the show. They were one of the mightiest units I’ve ever seen live. Those who defend the later, Derrick Green-version of Sepultura would never do so if they saw this band.
Related posts:
to a degree i would say sepultura is damaging its legacy by pretty much everything post-roots (and that album is divisive enough). sepultura through chaos a.d. is quite a time-capsule of metal. the changes from early death-thrash to a more-rhythmic influenced sound before going completely off the grid is interesting to listen.
Whoa! I was at that show in San Jose and it was a great all around. They were pretty much on top of their game, and you can hear the big difference in drum and guitar sound from the previous videos–Chaos A.D-era Sep sounded much heavier. Prong and Pantera were good too, and this was when Phil Anselmo would chuck full beer cups into the crowd. Another funny thing that happened at that show was my brother getting a ticket for drinking in public–we were drinking in the parking complex along with probably 10,000 other metalheads, and he gets a fuckin ticket. I don't think he ever paid it, either, haw.
Napalm Death does a sick cover of 'Troops of Doom' on LNF2.
but but but ben, sepultura immediately broke up amicably after roots and never even considered sullying their immaculate legacy with questionable member transfusions and really horrible forays into nu-metal.
wait, what? *sticks fingers in ears* lalalalalalalala can't hear you.
my favorite thrash band.
I still haven't heard anything from the post-Max band. I haven't received any encouragement to do so, and I don't want to hear anything that will reflect badly on the band I used to love.
If my reaction is typical, I wonder if they would have been commercially better off forming the new lineup under a different name? I'm pretty certain I would have checked out a new band containing Igor and Andreas , but not called Sepultura…
Man, I envy you Cosmo. I would have loved to see Sep on the Chaos A.D. tour. I only got to see them a few years after Derrick Green joined, and Soulfly when they opened for Pantera. I've had my fingers crossed for a reunion, but we all know that's just not gonna happen.
Matt – I actually liked Revolusongs, the covers EP that the Derrick Green lineup recorded. Perhaps that's because it wasn't their songs. I know a lot of people liked Max and Ig(g)or's album together as Cavalera Conspiracy, though I found it uninteresting and overproduced.
There's no way the current Sepultura lineup would be commercially better off under a different name. Few would care about them. They're just riding on the name their predecessors built.
"I'm pretty certain I would have checked out a new band containing Igor and Andreas , but not called Sepultura"
Exactly. In the long run, that was Kisser's biggest mistake: keeping the name. This ensured him a strong following (and a great deal with Spv), but he never took the idolatry factor into consideration. So when the 80's revival "occurred" and Max started to play a bit faster, the name started to work against them. The hordes of ex-thrashers going through a midlife crisis just couldn't stand the new Sepultura.
I was blessed with total ignorance about Kisser's and Cavalera's past when I first listened to their bands, and I got to say that this lack of preconception helped me to enjoy their music without anything else in mind, and to appreciate it just for what it was, not caring about what they "should" play and such bullshit. It's true that Schizophrenia – era Sepultura can kick everybody's ass, but I think I preferred Kisser's attitude over Max's, and its consequent reflect to the music: collaborations with Mike Patton and Jello Biafra, NOT Fred Durst. I do enjoy Soulfly also, but not that much. Don't get mad people, this is just my opinion.
man, this videos made me sad… what a shame today's sepultura is….
being brazilian, and listening to sepultura pretty much my ENTIRE LIFE, i can