sepultura's second full length "schizophrenia" was, like "morbid visions" and the split with overdose, released on cogumelo records and came out in 1987. it seems that cogumelo released the album only for the south american market. later on the album got a few pressings on different labels, for example shark records from germany, but it was never fully distributed internationally. as i already stated in the preceeding post, sepultura was signed to roadrunner in 1989 for the release of "beneath the remains". a year afterwards roadrunner re-released "schizophrenia", this time on an international scale.
by the time it was re-released on cd, cassette and vinyl. there are a few cd and cassette pressings under the imprints of r/c records and roadracer records and also under the name of the mother label itself. why roadrunner worked with these different imprints i really cannot say. i read that they used roadracer in the states to avoid name right problems with the comic character roadrunner from the looney tunes but that doesn't explain r/c records. anyway, this box set version is a detailed re-press of the european pressing from 1990 on the roadracer imprint.
besides a sticker on the cover advertising the re-mastered album and the bonus track "troops of doom" (a re-recorded version from "morbid visions") and few legal informations in the fine print, this rhino re-press looks like it came out twenty seven years ago. of course it is the easiest way for rhino to keep this re-press as close to the blue prints from the roadrunner archives as possible but this suits me just fine. i love my re-press that way. even the printed dust sleeve comes on standard paper quality that feels so eighties and not with a glossy finish which is common these days.
musically the sound improved quite a lot in comparison to "morbid visions", the production is sharper. the songs are still that early slayer and metallica influenced thrash metal with a few excurses into the realm of death metal here and there. an important event for the future of sepultura was the joining of andreas kisser as lead guitarist for "schizophrenia". nevertheless sepultura's sophomore album remains to be the one i like the least. a shame because the vinyl colour used here is the slickest in my opinion. a lovely baby blue which reveals its marble effect held against the light. rhino records. 2017.
