Ya, I’m the first one to write a review on the Soulfly album and let me tell you its really good especially the first half of the album. I bought this CD with two other CDs (Chimaira and Rage against the Machine) at HMV a few days ago. Sure, it was a lot but it has two CDs and it’s a fast paced in your face (pardon the rhyme) metal album.
Band Members- Max Calavera- Throat, guitar and additional percussion
- Marcello D.Rappa- Bass
- Mikey Doling- Lead Guitar
- Ray Mayorga- Drums
Now onto the music, the album starts with a bang in Eye for an eye. Max’s harsh vocals, Mikes interesting riffs and Rays accents make the song a smash start to the album. The album paces itself with the songs No Hope = No Fear and Bleed. While No Hope = No Fear featured more of what was on the previous track, being Palm muted guitars with Max’s harsh screams in the verses and short and simple choruses Bleed featured Fred Durst? WHAT?! Well any ways Bleed still proves to be a good song going to what seems like Nu-Metal almost (But of course this going to happen) with Fred rapping. The next few tracks offered just the same thing but with less appeal with the exception of a few groovy riffs and the tribal influenced drums the songs couldn’t compete with the start of the album. Though in Bumba Max takes a different approach by adding some Portuguese in the lyrics, but still Max’s screams get lazier and worse in every track even unbearable at times. The track Soulfly (yes, there’s a song that’s the same name as the band) brings the album a new look, not only as a instrumental track but also shows the tamer side of Soulfly, also it gives the listeners a break from Max’s vocals with progressive like guitar riffs and the gentle tapping of bongos the song takes you to paradise. The following track Umbabaruma keeps them coming with a pumped up chorus the song will have you out of your chair head banging. The songs become more and more equal as the album goes, Fire and No give excellent instrumentation with some good lyrics from Max, and also I quite like Max’s screams in both songs. Prejudice is an odd track, the song features many different artists singing with Max from different genres, an interesting idea. On the other hand Karmageddon was a complete bore fest and was unwise to set it as the album closer, as the second instrumental Soulfly was much better while this track was basically just Ray doing the same fill over and over again and not at any significant pace either.
How was the band? The band was excellent, the guitars are creative interesting and surprisingly are hardly ever repetitive, Ray is superb and shows the most consistency of any member of Soulfly, the bass is hard to hear at times but remains to be respectable while Max uses an at times nasty scream and usually just doubles up Mike on guitar, I would defiantly like to see more from Max. Though I said the guitar is hardly repetitive the guitar is usually repetitive during the end of songs making the songs blend which is not good. Sometimes the instrumentation is flat and only accented by the drums adding to the blending of songs.
In Conclusion Soulfly have created a solid peace of music but they can defiantly use improvement by adding a few accents and maybe adding Max’s clean voice. The consistency of the album is another issue as the beginning seems to give more appeal than rest of the album because of some of lesser tracks in the middle and that’s a shame. Besides that the album was a hit with me and I recommend it to thrash and metal fans since it’s a brutal head bangger.
Recommended tracks:
Eye for an Eye
No Hope = No Fear
Bleed
Soulfly
Umbabaruma
