Cavalera - Schizophrenia (LP) - Curacao Blue Transparent Vinyl

Schizophrenia has always been the point where the Cavalera brothers’ feral early vision sharpened into something nastier and more precise. Recut under the Cavalera banner and released on 28 June 2024 through Nuclear Blast, this new Schizophrenia doesn’t try to rewrite history. It reclaims it. The bones of the 1987 classic are intact, but the flesh is tougher, the teeth sharper, and the intent unmistakable.

You hear it straight away in From the Past Comes the Storms. The riff that once hissed now bites, and Iggor’s kick patterns land with a clarity the original tape could only hint at. Max’s vocal is a lived-in snarl, more gravel and grit than the teenage banshee of the first run, yet it suits these songs perfectly. The whole thing moves like a well-oiled war machine, even when the pace shifts and the pocket opens up. To the Wall is the other obvious marker, and the new version hits like a wrecking ball, all chug and sudden accelerations, the kind of track that makes you unconsciously clench your jaw on the tram.

The band’s current setup serves this material well. It is very much the Max and Iggor show, with a low-end rumble that gives the trem-picked riffs extra menace and solos that feel like sparks flying off a grinder. What once sounded like hungry kids in a Belo Horizonte rehearsal room now sounds like the same kids, all grown up, with decades of road dust and stage sweat baked in. The production is modern but not sterile, more venom than varnish, and it keeps the atmosphere that made Schizophrenia such a pivotal record in the first place.

Escape to the Void is where the update really clicks. The original was already a blueprint for the death-thrash hybrids that would follow, and here the tempo changes feel more surgical. The chorus barrels forward with that unmistakable Brazilian swing in the drum accents, the kind of detail you only notice when the recording gives every cymbal wash room to breathe. Screams Behind the Shadows thrives on similar upgrades, its guitar figures snapping into focus without losing the sense that the floor could give way at any moment.

Part of the thrill is historical. Schizophrenia marked a turning point for Sepultura in 1987, the moment they stepped out of their early blackened murk and into a sharper, riff-forward identity that would ripple through extreme metal far beyond Brazil. Hearing the Cavalera brothers take these songs back, after beginning this re-recording run in 2023 with Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions, carries a charge that goes beyond nostalgia. It is restoration work, but it is also a reminder that these tunes were built to last.

If you’re spinning metal on wax, this is a layup. Schizophrenia vinyl puts weight behind the kick drums and lets those quick right-hand rhythms bloom, and the pacing of the album side to side still makes perfect sense. I’ve already had a few mates ask where to find Cavalera vinyl locally, and any decent Melbourne record store should have it in the new releases, though it’s just as easy to buy Cavalera records online if your local is sold out. For those building a shelf of Brazilian heavy hitters, lining up Cavalera albums on vinyl with the original Sepultura pressings is a neat way to trace the lineage. It also helps that Nuclear Blast have kept these packages straightforward and fan-friendly, which matters for anyone in the vinyl records Australia crowd trying not to get fleeced.

Reception across the heavy music press has been what you’d expect for a project this focused. Longtime fans get a punchier, meaner version to blast in the car, and new listeners get a gateway into a catalogue that shaped the 90s. The big win is that nothing here feels perfunctory. The brothers attack Schizophrenia like it still proves something, and in a way it does. It proves that the spark from those early days wasn’t a trick of the tape or a quirk of youth. It was craft and hunger, and it still crackles.

If you know these songs by heart, hearing them with this much heft is a thrill. If you are new to early Cavalera-era material, this is the cleanest entry point you could ask for. Either way, drop the needle, let From the Past Comes the Storms rip, and remember why this chapter of Brazilian metal still looms so large.