Dedicado à Deus it says on the back of the digipack. For an album that is dedicated to God it sure isn't very godlike. It's pretty much widely accepted by connoisseurs that Cavalera wrote his best music during his Satan loving days and not in his very Christian period. Although the biblical artwork in the booklet is nice to look at, the music leaves much to be desired.
The album begins with a popular Soulfly song,
Back to the Primitive, of which the video could be seen on MTV. It immediately sets the tone and leaves us with a clear idea of what is yet to come. Introduced by Brasilian sounding instrument of which I do not know the name, tribal drumming, simple downtuned riffs and Cavalera's tribal blabbering. Whilst not being an amazing song, it is one of the highlights of the album and it is enjoyable with its power and tempo changes.
Pain is next and is an indicator for another hobby of Max Cavalera. Not only does he seem to change his line-up every album, it also seems to be a personal goal of his to get every musician or vocalist he knows to sing or play in a song. He even gets the so called
'mulambo tribe' to shout on the aptly named song
Mulambo, but when looking at the group picture of this so called tribe, they are a bunch of young guys, wearing sport clothes and white caps, you know the type. The song itself is hardly worth listening to. In general, the guests don't impress and seem to be put in only for the sake of being put in. Chino Moreno is a decent singer and it's fun to hear him on Pain. He's far from amazing, but the song is one of the best on the album. A strange appearance is that of John Lennon's son, Sean. He has an enjoyable singing voice, even though his talking voice is a bit, well umm, queer. His co-writing of the song seems to have helped the level up a bit, because it is a pretty good song. Slayer's Tom Araya is another one to appear, in a song that is annoyingly similar to a lot of the other songs.
Cavalera uses the same type of riffs over and over again, and, while that is okay when listening to these songs separately, after hearing a whole album of it, it induces boredom and it's almost irritating.
A nu-metal celebrity like Corey Taylor (Slipknot) could not be left off of the guest list, obviously and he sings on
Jumpdafuckup, which is a surprisingly refreshing song. It contains riffs that aren't exact copies of most of the riffs on the album and the verse even features clean guitars. Taylor's vocals flow really well and in my opinion, this is probably the best song on the album.
The last three songs (not including the bonus tracks) have a different approach.
Soulfly II is some sort of continuation of
Soulfly, an instrumental from the first album. It's a relaxing song, with many of the tribal influences Soulfly is known for, only without the downtuned guitar wall mixed in. It brings a much a wanted breathing pause.
In Memory Of ... has three rappers from the group Cutthroat Logic on it. The rapping doesn't go well with the music, which on its turn doesn't go very well with the chorus, another pointless song.
Flyhigh then has a pop chorus, sung by a female, it's not as bad as it sounds, but it's not amazing either. One can suppose Cavalera is trying new things, but for the most part he fails. The bonus tracks are an addition that big fans would surely enjoy and
Eye for an Eye remains one of the best Soulfly songs. No amazing bonus tracks to be found though.
Another thing that I must emphasise is the fact that Max Cavalera truly is a horrible lyricist. Sometimes it feels that the lyrics were written by a one legged lizard who has just lost his wife in a cycling accident and suffers from a lack of inspiration because of it. Cavalera's lyrics go from bad to plain retarded. After hearing the entire album it seems as if he only knows the words "Bulls
hit", "Mothafu
cka", "Fuc
koff" and "Soul". Seriously, the man seems to have some sort of soul fetish. Really, really bad lyrics.
Overall this album is poor, the thick sound of downtuned guitars playing very similar riffs is just not pleasant to listen to for an entire album. Only for big fans.
2.5/5
