Sepultura "Bestial Devastation" EP. Cogumelo Records (1985)

Bestial Devastation is an EP by Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura, released in 1985 through Cogumelo Records. It is their first official release, and originally appeared alongside Overdose's Século XX as a split album. The EP's songs were later released as bonus tracks on the CD version of Morbid Visions.

Because of Sepultura's collective lack of money, most of the instruments used on Bestial Devastation were borrowed from friends and acquaintances.

The vocals on the introductory track "The Curse" were performed by a friend of the band; according to Igor Cavalera:

“One thing I remember is that we had one of our friends come and do the voice for the intro ('The Curse') because he would do that voice without effects - he was kind of burping in a way. It was funny, so we had him come down and do it in the studio. I don't even remember his name!”

The band apparently fought with the producer during the recording. In an interview, Igor Cavalera said, "He wanted to clean everything up in the mix and we finally had to play him some records by Venom to show him that bands sounded this way".

Released December 1, 1985
Recorded August 1985 at J.G. Estudios, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Genre Thrash metal, death metal
Length 15:37
Label Cogumelo, Roadrunner
Producer Sepultura

Bestial Devastation was released in December 1985, alongside Overdose's Século XX EP Over the next few months it sold 8,000 copies.[8] Sepultura's surprising success was partly attributed to the first Rock in Rio, which took place in Rio de Janeiro in January 1985. This music festival's line-up included Whitesnake, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Queen, Ozzy Osbourne and the Scorpions, and was responsible for Brazil's hard rock/heavy metal boom.

The EP was later reissued by Roadrunner Records on one CD with Morbid Visions in 1997. The reissue included a demo version of the song "Necromancer" that was the first studio recording of the band, and a live version of "Antichrist" from the Chaos A.D. tour, re-written as "Anticop".

Track listing

Bestial Devastation

All tracks written by Max "Possessed", Jairo "Tormentor", and Paulo "Destructor" except where noted.

No. Title Lyrics
Sice A
1. "The Curse"
2. "Bestial Devastation"
3. "Antichrist" (Wagner "Antichrist"& Max "Possessed")

Side B
4. "Necromancer"
5. "Warriors of Death"
6.     "Troops Of Doom"

Beginning to listen to “Bestial Devastation”, you will notice immediately the weird intro, titled “The Curse”:

“The curse is launched, beware.

The Lord of Death declared the war,

Satanas is invoked to destroy

and to command the BESTIAL DEVASTATION!”

These verses are spoken with a pretty laughable guttural tone. Many people find it just ridiculous, but I think it’s awesome as fuck: the fact is that they did it without any effect applied to the vocals! It’s incredible, if you think about it: a bunch of crazy Brazilian metalhead teens who just want to have fun playing extreme music in the vein of Venom and Hellhammer, in order to make the ordinary “satanic tongue-in-cheek” effect, come up with a monstrous intro using GUTTURAL GROWLS before everyone else... they were totally ahead of their time, and they didn’t even know it!.  

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"Blashyrk"