Sepultura and My Two Favorite Drummers

Sepultura is a death metal band from Brazil, for those of you who don't know.  They started out as four teenagers in the early 80's who could barely play their instruments, but at that time no one was making extreme metal in Brazil, so they quickly gained enough of a following to break onto the international scene (Brazil is a great country to do this in, in fact, probably the best after the US and England.  Brazilians are crazy about music, and they have good taste)
Throughout the bulk of their career, Sepultura's primary creative force was lead singer and guitarist Max Cavalera.  The rest of the lineup was mostly stable after the mid 80's; consisting most famously of founding bassist Paulo Jr., guitarist Andreas Kisser and founding drummer Igor Cavalera, Max's brother.  After some iconic, tour-de-force albums, some fairly standard issue rock & roll turmoil, and the untimely death of Max's adopted son, Max opted to leave the band and form Soulfly as a revolving door lineup of musicians centered around his nu-metal ambitions.  After some late 90's faltering, Soulfly actually evolved into a pretty incredible band, coming full circle to Max's tribal-inflected death metal roots.  Sepultura was finished, in the eyes of many fans, the moment Max moved on.
Not me, however.  I actually had the odd fortune of hearing the band for the first time after Max left, and only partially aware of his previous connection to them.  I was a fan of Soulfly in their nu-metal heyday (I was in high school, that's my excuse), and I heard my first Sepultura song quite by accident on a store bought metal compilation.  The song was from the album Against, first to feature replacement singer Derrick Green.  I fell in love with the tribal rhythms and bone grinding guitars, and well, the vocals weren't a far cry from what I was used to getting from Max.  I eventually assembled the entire Sepultura catalog, and while I acknowledge that the two previous albums, Chaos A.D. and Roots are artistically superior achievements, I reach for Against more often than any other Sepultura album.
So the years went by, and Sepultura quietly worked their way into my subconscious.  Album after album came and went, and I was always impressed with the band's ability to shred in the most uniquely unholy ways.  Soulfly fell out of favor with the critics, and I pretty much stopped hearing about them until the last 2 years or so (they've gotten a lot better, as I mentioned).  Then, just before the recording and release of Sepultura's most recent album, Kairos, Igor Cavalera left the band.  In the nearly 3 decades of his tenure, he developed one of the most unique drumming styles I've ever come across, seamlessly blending authentic tribal rhythms and instruments into laser precise technical death metal pyrotechnics.  I always used to say, If I was better at drums, I would drum exactly like him.  Many drummers share the same level of technical ability, but, no two are exactly alike in the way they choose to organize their fills, their accents, the particular sounds they choose to coax out of their kit.  I always felt like Igor Cavalera and I were somehow on the same wavelength.  When I drum along to a song with my fingers, I very rarely do it exactly the same way as the drummer does, especially when it comes to fills, solos & accents.  But with Igor's work in Sepultura, I more often than not found myself making the same little rhythmic detours he did, quite by accident.  Now, obviously, thumbs on a steering wheel is a far cry from a 12 piece kit, but this is still interesting.  In my brief endeavors as a musician, I sought to emulate him above all others.  And when he left the band, I feel it had a much larger impact on their sound than when the main creative mind left.  Without Igor's instantly recognizable drumming, without either Cavalera brother, Sepultura just sounds like any old metal band.  They're still a good one, but they now utterly lack the unique flavor that made them one of my favorites.  And that's interesting.
And it brings me to this point.  My favorite drummers are not those with the flashiest technical abilities.  Otherwise I'd be into guys like Zbigniew Robert "Inferno" Promiński of Behemoth, or Zach Hill.  I will always prefer musicality to raw technical flash.  My other favorite drummer is one Reed Mullin, founding member of Corrosion of Conformity.  Mullin's style has run the Gamut from sloppy 4-piece kit punk drumming, to intense thrash metal pounding, to radio rock restraint.  But when it comes to the way he fills the cracks between the beats he keeps, there's no one quite like him.  And when COC dropped him for their recording In the Arms of God they somehow lost their balls, even though the guitars were heavier.  Their previous record, America's Volume Dealer has often been viewed as an unfortunate detour into too radio-friendly territory for the band that brought you Animosity and Blind.  But I'd take Reed Mullin being a pussy over Stanton Moore rocking my nuts any day.  Because Mullin is a musical drummer.  COC has never had a stable line up.  They've had, like 4 lead singers, and a handful of second guitarists come and go over the years.  But when Mullin left, the band faltered.  Now that he's back, the band rocks once more.
So in my eyes, that's what makes a good drummer.  One who, without his unique style, robs a band of their muscle.
Check out some of Igor's work here:
Sepultura with Max AND Igor
Sepultura with Igor
Sepultura sans Igor
And Check out Reed Mullin here:
COC's punk roots with Reed
COC's more radio-friendly days with Reed
COC thrashing with Reed
COC without Reed
Also:
Technical Ability
Musicality
Tell me which one is more memorable? (Also note that Jimi is a left handed guitarist playing an upside down right handed guitar.  And he tunes it while he plays it. Tits.)