Brazilian/American thrashers SEPULTURA have set The Mediator Between The Head And Hands Must Be The Heart (what a mouthful) as the title of their new album, due in October via Nuclear Blast Records.
Although it was inspired by Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 movie Metropolis, the CD is not a concept album or a soundtrack like its predecessors Dante XXI (based on The Divine Comedy) and A-Lex (based on A Clockwork Orange).
The Mediator Between The Head And Hands Must Be The Heart was tracked over a 40-day period at producer Ross Robinson’s (KORN, LIMP BIZKIT, SLIPKNOT) studio in Venice, California and will be mixed and mastered by co-producer Steve Evetts, who previously worked with SEPULTURA on the Nation (2001), Revolusongs (2002) and Roorback (2003) albums, in addition to having collaborated with Ross on a number of other projects in the past.
The follow-up to 2011’s Kairos will contain nine songs, including “The Age Of The Atheist,” “Tsunami”, “The Vatican” and “Trauma Of War”, and two bonus tracks (covers of DEATH’s “Zombie Ritual” and a song from the Brazilian group CHICO SCIENCE E NAÇÃO ZUMBI). The CD will also feature a guest appearance by former SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo.
Commented guitarist Andreas Kisser: “I was inspired by a phrase which is the main message of the story: ‘The mediator between the head and hands must be the heart’ to express what we are saying on the lyrics.
“In the movie, a crazy millionaire wants to transform a robot into a real person. That’s kind of the opposite of what we live today. More than ever we are robotized, through the worldwide web, Google glasses, chips under our skins and the globalized slavery our society suffers nowadays. The phrase points to the heart as being the human factor who keeps a man, a man, not a robot. The heart beats with freedom of choice, we have to think by ourselves to create a real world, not a matrix. ?
“Being a novel written in the early 1920s, it’s almost prophetical. It helped us to put the ideas together for the lyrics to express what we see today.
“I live in São Paulo, Brasil, one of the big metropolis in the world with more than 20,000,000 people living and working in it. I know how it is to live in daily chaos, our music reflects a lot of that feeling.
“The album is brutal, fast and straight to the point, I feel this is the best SEPULTURA ever, no bullshit.
“To work with Ross Robinson again was a privilege, one of the best producers out there. He has a strong connection with nature, the human heart, with life in general.
“We did an album that is alive, no fake studio tricks, we were jamming together in the room exploding in an energy so strong you could grab it.
“The heart will never stop beating for mankind. We are no robots, we are pure natural energy and that’s worth fighting for. We’re not slaves; I have a pulsing heart!”