Soulfly-Archangel (2015)

Soulfly-Archangel (2015)

"We sat outside the studio at night, among a few candles, and closed our eyes for a minute. After that, we jammed straight from our hearts. We didn't play for ourselves, but for the ones no longer with us in flesh, but always with us in spirit. God bless. Until we meet again. Soul fly... fly free!"

Max Cavalera

By: Ghost Writer

In order to escape obsolescence, Max Cavalera's main musical outlet, Soulfly seems to be getting far from Nu Metal, the genre that saw them born, and that they helped greatly to expand, Cavalera knows that leaving novelty genres and going towards more traditional ones is a guarantee that the band will stay more relevant, I have to admit that Cavalera is looking beyond the legendary Sepultura, but brutality for brutality's sake might not be the clue for a bright future, and Archangel, although rocks hard and stays in a high level if brutality is not exactly relevant nor memorable.

We Sold Our Sold  to Metal reminds me of Brujeria, a Death Metal act that included Cavalera for some time, is a powerful hardcore tinged metal with Cavalera going really wild on vocals, and a devastating drum work, while guitars sound lame trying to bring back the neoclassical work if Sepultura main guitarist Andreas Kisser, yes, in a way Archangel looks like Max love letter to his infamous old band, as the title track is a time machine return to Sepultura's Arise years, with slight touches of their more primitive early years.

Even though Sodomites is powerful piece with thundering guitars and drums, it sound awkward even for Sepultura's early tunes, yes, it's a skull crushing tune, but is a throwback to almost 3 decades back to the Troops of Doom era, I guess at this moment, Max could be doing more forward thinking metal, but each tune really screams that Max is trapped in a cage hardly figuring how to get out.

Live Life Hard! Is a definite attempt at making some notable changes, but in the end, Max is digging in his hardcore punk roots, which keep things moving, pleasing longtime fans, but at the same time keeping Soulfly away from making some new ones, nevertheless guitars and drums are stellar all along this song, creating moments of amazing tension and power, and when the band arrives to Shamash they resuscitate some old tricks from the Roots era, although they work them in a clever way, just before get it all messed up on the weird sounding Bethlehem’s Blood.

I must notice that there are some outstanding tracks here, like the intense Titans, the relentless Deceiver and the closing all out approach of Mother of Dragons that show in a clear way the desire of Cavalera to break apart from the accessibility and popularity of Soulfly's past but is a very drastic departure that might send the band directly into the dangerous zone of oblivion, might this be Calavera's farewell letter to Soulfly? Like Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff, I can't see long or bright future for the band, but at the same time, it seems that Max has opened a big door towards the past and towards his legendary former band, could it be?