REVIEW: Soulfly, Soulfly (Roadrunner)
- Linda Scott
Hard, aggressive, metal riffs with a South American influence, samples, raps, Brazilian tribal rhythms and chants - this is the take-no-prisoners debut album of Soulfly. The vocals are gravelly shouts. While songs may be short on melody and sometimes hard on the ears, they all have a beat made for banging your head or tapping your feet.
Soulfly is technically a debut album, but the power behind the release is Max Cavalera, a man with 15 years experience as lead singer for Sepultura. Max, wife and manager Gloria, his brother Igor yanked Sepultura from Brazil and made it a world famous band. Amazingly, Max and Gloria were abruptly fired during a successful Sepultura world tour. Combined with the death of his stepson at around the same time, it's been a tough period for this highly successful singer/songwriter. Cavalera's taken his feelings of anger, misery and frustration and poured them into Soulfly. Three experienced musicians with a creative attitude and a metal wavelength were chosen: Jackson Bandeira (guitar - from Brazilian band Chico Science), Marcello Rapp (bass - former Sepultura roadie), and Roy "Rata" Mayorga (drums - from Thorn). With the new band and album, Cavalera draws a line for Sepultura to measure up to.
The first key song on Soulfly is the leadoff track, "Eye For An Eye". The lyrics about betrayal and revenge are a message to old bandmates in Sepultura. This is one of the great tracks of the album and could easily have been the first single. Max's voice growls with anger while snarling, dissonant guitars pound the point home. A great introduction! Other highpoints are "The Song Remains Insane", "Bleed" (first single), "Soulfly", and "Prejudice". The title cut, "Soulfly", is so different it almost belongs on another album. It shows off Cavalera's ability to take a softer rock song, add some tropical feelings, and get a wonderful, mellow sounding piece. Cavaleras wanted to take this band to a new level beyond just metallic riffs, and he's done that here.
Soulfly looks like a major contender. What they will do to Sepultura in terms of battling for sales, fans, venues is not yet known. But if you like metal and hard rock, Cavaleras hasn't changed his style *that* much - which makes Soulfly a must-get album.
For more information on them, you can check out related sites at http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com or http://www.sepultribe.com
