Best Metal Videos of All Time
Number 3: Roots, Bloody Roots—Sepultura
3: Roots, Bloody Roots—Sepultura (Brazil) Total Score = 11
Scoring rationale: music 9 points + 1 point for cultural significance + 1 point for musical innovation = 11 points;
Roots, Bloody Roots indeed. How deep do they go? One could argue that the video not only depicts the roots of Sepultura’s home country, but also the roots of the band itself (Beneath the Remains), as parts are shot in the catacombs of Salvador (where Brazilian slaves were sold), but might also refer to the band’s underground status. On top of that, when Max shouts out the chorus, the scene shifts to a catholic icon (Jesus?) who, with his beard and long hair, shows an uncanny resemblance to Max Cavalera himself. The band walking through the streets of a Brazilian city reflecting their street cred. I could go on.
Max Cavalera sounds so pained. Is he ashamed of his roots? It’s probably much more complex than that. As the quote at the beginning goes: “Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely”. Brazil has suffered a lot—many would say it’s still suffering—while also many good things arose from that very suffering. Roughly speaking, Brazil sometimes knows how to turn something they received from other countries—say, for example, carnival and football—into something truly ‘good and lovely’ (and archtypically Brazilian). The album Roots is also a major example of that.
Like the way Rammstein feels about their German heritage? Keep in mind that a lot of Rammstein’s initial proclivity for controversy came from them being East Germans after the German reunification in 1990. More to the point, the original Germanic people have always been white—dare we say, Aryan1—and are still the dominant culture while the original people of Brazil (like those in about all other countries in the Americas) have been marginalised after centuries of colonisation. Thus Brazil’s population is a huge mix of the descendants of European colonists, imported African slaves and natives. So when Sepultura looks into its ‘bloody roots’, they refer to this rich and highly complex history: not only about the native Brazilian tribes, but also about the influence of the Roman Catholic Church after the Portuguese colonisation2. Check, for instance, the shot at the very beginning of a black man holding his face in his hands in despair as he stands under a huge white cross, probably—I’m surmising here—symbolising the slave trade brought by the Roman Catholic colonisers.
Well, the list started out with humour and some tongue-in-cheekiness, but since number 7 it’s become infused with relevance and erudition. What happened to fun? Keep in mind that there are certain similarities with the preceding videos in this list. For one, it’s about the history of the band’s country (like Rammstein’s “Deutschland”), while they get a fantastic video shot with a low budget (à la Devin Townsend’s “Genesis”)—I suspect the budget for “Roots” was less than 1% of that of “Deutschland”. I could add that the video displays what they feel “Underneath”, that it’s about their “Flesh and Blood”, but I’ll stop before I get a “Stinkfist”…;-)
It’s certainly a nice video, and the song has a great riff. But number 3? Admittedly, some youthful memories play in its favour. When the Dynamo Open Air festival moved from Eindhoven’s Ice Skating Ring to the field of the old military airport, it became the biggest heavy metal festival of the world3. So when Sepultura played at DOA and Max Cavalera fired of the riff4 of Roots, Bloody Roots, some fifty thousand people started jumping up and down in ecstasy on a field where many bombs that had been dropped during the Second World War had not been cleared5. Nothing happened—none of these bombs detonated—but this is one of these glorious moments where great metal music went hand in hand with a reckless metal attitude.
So this song and the Roots album represent Sepultura’s zenith? Depends on your viewpoint and taste. Roughly speaking, Sepultura started off as a Slayer clone6, then found its own sound with albums like Chaos AD and Roots. However, then the Cavalera brothers (Max first) split from Sepultura—becoming Soulfly and later Cavalera Conspiracy—as Andreas Kisser, Igor Cavalera and Paulo Jr. continued with a new singer. Typically, while the Cavalera brothers may have introduced the local music roots into Sepultura, the band eventually—especially after Igor Cavalera’s exit—took the integration of native Brazilian music much further after they left. Meaning Sepultura is still forging new paths while the Cavalera brothers are doing their second Roots anniversary tour, meaning the original renewers have become stuck in their own rut as the band Sepultura moves on.
Don’t say: Has Sepultura now finally found the true depth of its roots?
Do say: Please keep developing your sound, there are too many stagnating metal bands already.
A term that hugely predates Nazi Germany, which misused it;
There were French and Dutch incursions into Brazil, as well;
To be overtaken later by other festivals such as Monsters of Rock, Rock am Ring, Graspop Metal Meeting and Wacken Open Air, but that is the nature of things;
Still one of heavy metal’s best riffs ever;
Legendary DOA organiser André Verhuysen told me after the festival. Nobody knew that at the time;
There certainly are worse examples/idols;