✦✦✧✧ A clearly rëenergized Sep come out with an album that is paradoxically less exciting than its predecessor, “Machine Messiah” (and I’m not just saying that because I’m an unrepentant Yes fan). Hints of “A-Lex” and “Kairos” abound here, as well as the band’s lifelong devotion to their punk forebears. Also, the production is oddly mushy, and bums me out (a band this established and influential deserves a better mix; that it came from Jens Bogren is mystifying).

✦✦✦✧ This is one weird album, and unlike anything I’ve heard Sepultura do before (which is a very good thing). You’ve got elements from all possible constituent influences (old Sep! more recent Sep! punk! thrash!), as well as rando sounds I never would have pulled for them (vaguely Persian root music!

★☆☆☆ Seriously, who gives a shit about Sepultura anymore? I mean, “The Mediator…” continues the band’s progression (such as it is) into unformulaic tone poems of inchoate rage, but no one — not producer Ross Robinson, nor Dave Lombardo — could make me actually care. Mind you, none of the tracks are particularly bad, and buried in the mix is “Grief,” a legitimately great tune.