It seems like 100 years ago since Max Cavalera departed from Brazilian masters Sepultura to pursue and carve out his own thing on the metal scene with his tribal thrash gang Soulfly, and 15 years later the releases are still coming and as the years go by Max’s metal blood is still flowing molten lava with the album “Savages”.
After many bands changes over the years seemingly album to album, Soulfly has settled on Marc Rizzo (guitar), Tony Campos (Bass), and Max’s son Zyon Cavalera taking the drum duties for this release, where the sound is very much classic Soulfly, not a lot like the last album “Enslaved” which had a hard Death Metal influence, “Savages” slows down in pace, in pieces reminding me a lot of Max’s old side project Nailbomb in parts.
Of course, there’s still the brutal element in the song Cannibal Holocaust, but the rest of the album seems to plateau at a seemingly medium speed which for me is fine, but when I listen to previous Soulfly albums Max’s ability to take you on a journey of viciousness is lacking with this release, and I think Joe Nunez (former drummer) is a missing link, he was extremely technical and was brilliant on “Enslaved”, not taking anything away from Zyon Cavalera but the rhythm section feels like it needed a rocket in parts of this album to give it a hard kick in the ass as it almost sounds one dimensional.
I personally was really looking forward to hearing this album and was left a little disappointed, even after several listens, a couple of highlights being Cannibal Holocaust and the last track Soulfliktion, but still the Soulfly punch that you always get from Max’s musical writing was needed here, sure there are great riffs, lyrically always good, vocals are awesome but I felt after blasting it I needed to have more and had to start the album from scratch in case I had missed something.
Soulfly still delivers that tribal metal style that has become what they’re known for and why we love this band, but I think they might have dropped the ball with this release, not saying it’s a bad listen just saying it lacks a knockout blow which has come with recent albums from Max and the crew.
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Soulfly: Facebook
Release Year: 2013
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Category: Album
Country: Brazil
Reviewed by Hayden G.M.
