In a recent chat with Heavy Australia, Max Cavalera responded to Andreas Kisser’s criticism regarding the re-recordings of early Sepultura albums, which Kisser described as having “no artistic value.”
Cavalera explained the motivation behind re-recording Morbid Visions, Bestial Devastation, and Kisser’s first album with Sepultura, Schizophrenia. “It was kind of like a chance to do it again, but do it better—not to fix the mistakes, because I think the mistakes were kind of cool, but to make the music sound better,” Max said.
He elaborated on the technical limitations they faced in Brazil during the original recordings. “We had better guitars, better drum sounds, a better studio, and were surrounded by knowledgeable metal people who knew how to record this stuff. None of those things were available to us back then. The engineers didn’t know what to do, and it felt like we were in no man’s land while making those records.”
Cavalera continued, “The re-recordings represent how we envisioned those songs as musicians. Even as kids, we were hoping to get the sound that we achieved with the re-recordings—it’s what we were aiming for in the first place.”
Addressing the energy and raw emotion of the originals, he added, “We made sure to keep the anger and energy intact. It’s full of piss and vinegar all the way through, and that’s why so many fans love the re-recordings. They’ve been really well-received around the world.”
Andreas Kisser, however, expressed a different perspective during a November interview with IMPACT Metal Channel. He called the re-recordings “strange and unnecessary,” adding that he doesn’t understand why Max and Igor Cavalera felt the need to revisit the albums. Kisser suggested that the re-recordings lack artistic value and speculated they might have been financially motivated.