Thirteen Soulfly albums? Really?
It’s hard to believe that Soulfly have carved out such a prolific career, especially given how many other calls the band’s visionary leader, Max Cavalera, has upon his team. And yet Max, always one of the most passionate of metallers, has never been one to rest upon his laurels. From the moment Soulfly was launched, as a means of catharsis in the wake of Max’s departure from Sepultura; to the present day, where Soulfly stands as one of extreme metal’s most revered names, it has been a passion project, with each record reflecting Max’s continued evolution as a songwriter.
Prolific Max may be, but it has been three long years since Totem detonated. In the interim, Max returned to scuzzy punk-metal with the excellent Unhealthy Mechanisms (Go Ahead and Die) and to his past with a handful of re-recorded Sepultura material (Bestial Devastation, Morbid Visions, and Schizophrenia). Now it’s time to return to the mothership for another ten-track blast of bruising metal, tribal rhythms, and occasional snatches of ambient beauty amidst the devastation.
Hauling itself out of a miasma of eerie noise in a manner reminiscent of the early Seps albums, Indigenous Inquisition is a sludge-fuelled nightmare with industrial underpinnings. Delivered like some sort of psychotic Capoeira, it serves primarily as a scene setter, paving the way for the dense groove of Storm The Gates. Deftly produced by Zyon Cavalera and longtime collaborator Arthur Rizk, it sounds suitably immense, and it’s clear that Max has lost none of his gift for paring ambitious rhythms with bludgeoning riffs. Barely wasting a breath, the band plough headlong into the stabbing Nihilist. Initially a frantic blast of potent metal, it gains yet greater weight when the band slow the pace to a malicious crawl, the bruising riffs rolling over the unsuspecting listener like a tank. With Todd Jones (Nails) lending hands on vocals, it’s a ferocious, dynamic assault on the senses that proves irresistible.
With the album having hooked the listener in, Max’s longstanding friend Dino Cazeras (Fear Factory) drops in on No Pain = No Power. An interesting corollary to No Hope = No Future, it is an album highlight, boasting a mix of harsh and clean vocals (from Ben Cook & Gabriel Franco), and an eerie coda that predominantly serves to make the frenetic thrashing of Ghenna all the more brutal. With a guest spot from Arch Enemy shredder Michael Amott, it’s a high-octane monster of a track, delivered at blistering speed and with dizzying technical precision. In contrast, the gruelling Black Hole Scum is riven with the sound of overloaded amps and maxed out compressors – the closing riffs proving so monstrous as to be entirely overwhelming.
Having comprfehensively rearranged the listener’s senses with Black Hole Scum, the thrash-infused Favela – Dystopia almost comes as a relief, for all that it sounds like Nailbomb covering Slayer. Boasting an addictive rhythmic pulse, it’s a short, sharp shock to the system that then gives way to the schizophrenic Always Was, Always Will Be. Initially a slow-paced nightmare complete with semi-heard voices whispering into your ears, it suddenly bursts into life, Max deploying the sort of riff that powered Roots as he goes.
With the album rapidly approaching its end, XIII provides one moment of glorious calm amidst the towering riffs and harrowing vocals. Honestly, I hope someone gathers the numbered offerings from across the Soulfly albums into a single album one day, it would make for one hell of a trippy mood piece, and XIII is a typically earthy and evocative example of its kind. However, it’s important not to get too comfortable for this is a Soulfly album and, waiting in the wings, is one last potent burst of grinding, tearing metal. Named for the album, Chama is not merely a great metal song and, as it segues from none-more-brutal metal to ambient, it brings Soulfly’s exceptional thirteenth offering to a powerful close, leaving the listener once more in awe of Max’s unwavering commitment to his music.
With Max’s friends and peers dropping in to lend a hand, Soulfly has always felt less of a band and more of a loose, metal collective, always picking away at the corners of the genre and uncovering new elements, even while remaining true to the core, tribal sound established on the 1998 debut. As a result, Soulfly has become something of a touchstone for metal fans over the years, with each album showcasing a subtle evolution in terms of song writing and style. Chama is no exception. A hard-hitting, brilliantly produced entry into a discography which, in truth, contains no weak albums, it sets the blood pumping through the veins, and we should be thankful that, some thirteen albums in, Max retains the heart and the passion that drove him to music in the first place. A full-on metal assault that showcases the band’s myriad strengths time and again, Chama is an easy candidate for one of the metal albums of the year – Max has turned up trumps again. 9/10
