Sepultura went from the metal-thrashing-madness of their first few records to more groove-oriented material on their 1993 record Chaos A.D. During an interview with Wired In The Empire, former Sepultura frontman Max Cavalera said the album helped show how aggressive music is made with slower tempos.
Which is certainly true to an extent – Chaos A.D. is groovy as hell… but Chaos A.D. is also three years out from the release of both Pantera's Cowboys From Hell and Exhorder's Slaughter In The Vatican. So the proof of concept was certainly there.
"Those albums, to me, they're kind of like kids," said Cavalera of potential tours around Chaos A.D. "I like to celebrate their birthdays. I almost feel like I need to buy a cake and have a real birthday party on the day that the thing came out.
"Nah, I think we celebrate through the music, 'cause we're doing all these cool tours of celebrating the music. Of course I'm not saying we're gonna do a Chaos A.D. one, but if it happens, it'll be really cool. This year is also 25 years of [the debut album from] Soulfly, and those are two really close-to-my-heart records, both of them. Chaos A.D. opens with [my son] Zyon's heartbeat.
"It's a very special record. It's almost like a defining moment in metal, one of those records that kind of broke the mold, how metal can be. Because before Chaos A.D. everything was super fast and aggressive, and I think with Chaos A.D. we showed there's another way to make aggressive music, that's a little bit slower and more groove oriented, with stuff like 'Territory' and 'Slave New World' and 'Refuse/Resist'.
"I'm super proud of those records — super proud. Let's see what happens. I don't have [anything] concrete yet. Right now I'm just celebrating them like everybody else — just enjoy that they exist in my life, and very happy that I got to be part of making records like that."
A tour surrounding Chaos A.D. wouldn't be out of the question given the Cavalera brothers have been doing anniversary tours around classic Sepultura records like Roots, Beneath The Remains, and Arise.
