I am not sure whether Max Cavalera is at a point in his career where he feels he can rest and let his sons carve their own paths as they ‘guest,’ on his Soulfly albums or if he’s honestly just taking a piss these days? I mean, I feel like a fish trying to swim upstream only to die when listening to Soulfly albums since 2005’s Dark Ages. Each album since has had a couple highlights but have mostly been disappointing.
Mad Max’s latest album Savages starts off honest enough with the true-to-form seven minute opener, ‘Bloodshed.’ It has all of the elements of a classic Soulfly tune. Time changes, down tuned thrash, guitar solos and bludgeoning riffage. It’s followed by the speed metal punk of ‘Cannibal Holocaust.’ Marc Rizzo’s capable riffage takes the track’s outro, but it’s otherwise indiscernible from any general track in the band’s catalog.
In fact – let’s just cut to the chase and not waste more than the 15 minutes it took to write this album apparently. ‘Bloodshed,’ ”Master of Savagery,’ ‘El Comegente,’ and ‘Soulflicktion,’ are the only songs you need off this album. My life would have been so much better had I never spent 15 minutes (yes, I listened twice to verify how bad the track was) listening to ‘Ayatollah of Rock N Rolla.’ I am sorry but southern hard rock will never mix well with Soulfly’s brand of metal and should not have been attempted.
Maybe Max needs a break from the Soulfly brand. Some promising news came to us the other day in that he may soon be re-teaming in full with brother Igor. One can only hope it re-invigorates him to be both heavy and innovative moving forward.
Grade: C-
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