Soul Soaring in the Shallows, and Salvation by Way of an Immortal Dildo – Soulfly Enslaved Tour (2012)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Photos: Nina Grad

Venue: Gala Hala, Metelkova
Show date: June 7, 2012
Attendance: 800
Ticket price: €22 / €25 on the day of the show

A couple of decades ago I would have gladly opened my veins and fed my blood to the gods of Olympus for the chance to witness a show by the inspired prophet of metal, the mastermind of Sepultura, Max Cavalera. Preferably, hand on heart, the first and only true incarnation of the Brazilian death thrashers, who carried the name Sao Paola out into the interstellar void and who, besides Santana and Latin rhythms, blasted the raw, hard-hitting sound of uncompromising surrender to rhythm, tradition and the legacy of high-octane noise out of the speakers of Brazil lovers and virtuosos of the round leather ball – but what can you do? When you’re left without the original, you have to slap a few replacement band-aids on the wounded heart. Soulfly are part of that too, and given that Max’s soldiery has pretty much made it a tradition to perform its rites on Slovenian stages on every European tour, the announcement that the soulful fly would touch down in Ljubljana during its visit to the old continent came as no surprise. What made it even more intriguing was that the cards had been shuffled a bit in the meantime, and the Brazilian-American conglomerate now counted names like the bassist of Ministry and Prong, the masculine demigod of four strings Tony Campos, and the gifted Borknagar drummer David Kinkade, while the guitar duties were promised to be passed back and forth between the dad and mom of the band, Mr. Max Cavalera in person, and an old acquaintance of the Slovenian crowd, guitarist Marc Rizzo. The prospect got even sweeter when I managed to listen to the latest studio effort, marketed as »Arise on crack«, the album Enslaved, which, besides a rich lineup of guests like Dez Fafara of DevilDriver and Cattle Decapitation’s head screamer Travis Ryan, waxed the ears rather than serving up a laid-back recipe of samba, metal and tribal posturing – even more so than the excellent Dark Ages. Curiosity started to smolder, and so Soulfly landed on the list of shows it would be a sin to miss. This time even on Gala Hala’s summer stage, so the anticipation was greater still.

Time crawled at a snail’s pace and, by some strange coincidence, June finally arrived. On June 7 the metal caravan rolled into Metelkova too, and the glamorous tour bus – the on-the-road home of Max, his co-conspirators and the evidently business-savvy Yoko Ono of metal, Mrs. Gloria Cavalera in person – was strategically parked in front of Gala. The first letdown came when word reached me that for a meet&greet session and a five-minute audience with Max, Soulfly fans had to open their wallets and shell out as much as 100 euros for a photo with the man. I wouldn’t have given hearsay much weight, but then the forums started claiming it was damn well true. What interested me more was what Max would wrap into the stage package for Ljubljana, because after the last tour there was a rather dry aftertaste of stale and not exactly positive rambling without head or tail, which one could easily blame on fatigue, too fast a pace, or plain old age. The latter is almost unforgivable, considering that the Rolling Stones are celebrating 50 years on stage this year and can still squeeze out way more than a decent show, but it’s easy to tell yourself: »One bad day doesn’t necessarily herald the end of the world« or »One swallow doesn’t make a summer«. I don’t know why, but I got scared that the more fitting proverb would be »One fart for ten doctors«. Pessimism, or more like realism? I’d rather call it constructive cynicism … It was worth checking whether the story of a new success and a sturdier incarnation holds water.

Around eight the doors open and the first specimens of Slovenian tribal fashion start squeezing through the gates of Gala’s summer garden and taking up strategic positions by the bar, by the merch and at a safe distance from the stage, where the young Slovenian lads of Dead Dildo Drome have tuned up, plugged in and warmed up sprinter-style. A crew that hardly needs much introduction or description, made up of members of Leaf Fat, God Scard and Language Of Thought Hypothesis, who, after the hibernation or even outright breakup and internal restructuring of their home bands, managed to rewire their genetic DNA and bring to Slovenian lodges their own take on groove, new-metal audacity and Lamb Of God sharpness. They’ve confirmed their quality to me many times already, and from gig to gig my faith in their uncompromising, direct ejaculation of raw, authentic emotion only grows! A very catchy and punchy start kicks off with the rhythmically flawless Machine, where the center of gravity is stretched between venomously seasoned riffs tossed back and forth like a game by the former tLOTH four-stringer, now a well-practiced six-string man, Damir Juretič, and the standard-bearer of Kranj metal, dressed in white knee socks and a bandana, former God Scard member Andraž »Andy« Perko. The rhythmic foundation of solid, hard-hitting drums is built by the exceptional Enej Kuplenik, with Žiga Jerič confidently matching him on bass, while the central magnet for both the crowd’s attention and the critical cream below the stage is the charismatic provocateur and unrivaled frontman Robert »Šero« Šercer. If years ago I couldn’t easily swallow the juvenile, pubescent naivety that Leaf Fat poured into the eyes and ears of the Slovenian audience in above-standard quantities (by the way: with their second record they won over not just teenage girls with their harder riffs, but also us old quasi-metal grumps …), then after my first DDD show I fell to my knees and realized that even in Slovenian we can serve up something more than dance standards and limp-dicked copies of MTV formulas! Dead Dildo Drome are “the real thing”, and that’s proven by their confident run of shows and original songs, made for igniting passion and breaking the competition. After Machine the discourse of noise and chaotic destructive lust turns into a nonchalant settling of scores with the unbelievers, and if Opium didn’t do it, All Hail Satan thoroughly shook the organs. The raised right hand and the salute to the ruler of hell were meant to wake the crowd, which was approaching the stage at the speed of a demented paraplegic, and the »too early« arrivals’ energy-saving pedantry wasn’t beaten even by lukewarm chanting of the headliners’ name. DDD are a tight machine and well-oiled gears of the basic LOG and Shadows Fall, or even melodic death, matrix, creating an atmosphere in the manner of the greats. Šero, perhaps a bit too intoxicated with hop substrate, doesn’t buckle under stage fright or the unmotivated rooting of bar-side concert poplars. After the prematurely played hit about the guy who buckled under thrusts of a deadly chrome artificial bird and let his soul slip away in pursuit of pleasure, the soldiery quickly regrouped and followed the guidelines of the lost mental thread. Šero is a chameleon-like grandmaster of vocal leaps from brutal guttural growls to melodious vocals more familiar from Leaf Fat, and the intensity doesn’t drop by an inch or a hair. Gram by gram, the ten-ton roar of distortion, juicy rhythms and standards builds up, and the whole thing is tied together by humorous song intros in the style of: »This is a song about a guy who had a black dot in the middle of his forehead, and yes, it’s for all of you from India!«. I’ll admit it – I honestly love Dead Dildo Drome and can’t wait for fall, so I can rub their entire record, promised for October, into my ears and mind! The confidently played set deserved comparison with the Richmond gladiators of metal Lamb Of God, and no – they’re not just a flash in the pan! After their overture to the evening the guys deserved a standing ovation, not the faint applause of a few individuals, most of whom were accredited journalists, photographers, organizers and metal concert tourists from Italy and Croatia.

After a few beers and hellos to old acquaintances, the feverish preparations began for the event of the day, the week, the month and, according to the eternal optimists and nostalgics, the year. On stage, Brazilian and American flags fluttered over the Marshalls, while the sound guys checked guitar tuning and lights. Everything for an excellent, flawless party, you’d say. Time had come for Soulfly and for tallying up unsettled accounts with the past on an abacus! The intro was dedicated to the excellent record Enslaved, which already on first listen doesn’t sound quite so full-blooded live. World Scum is a really juicy missile of guttural brutality and top-notch groove on a death metal base on the record, but after the rhythm section of Borknagar’s Kinkade and the short-haired, broad-necked bassist Campos take the stage, and Marc Rizzo steps up on the right in front of his multi-story console of guitar distortion, Max Cavalera, visibly weathered and aged, waddles up to the microphone like the last prima donna in his camo colors, which have migrated from trousers big enough to cover a Fiat 500 onto the front of his guitar. Sadly, I soon realize the guitar is just for show and that the throat is anything but eager to prove its guttural superiority. I think it’s hard to be angry when the drive for cash takes over the musical message, but I wave the fleeting thought away with the comfort that I’m obviously not warmed up enough yet and so I don’t get why the overture is more like the lukewarm squirt of a syringe than the eruption of a hellish volcano. Then comes the shock – right after the first song Max leaves the stage and heads backstage. Following the example of Jonathan Davis of Korn and filling his lungs with oxygen? Whatever helps, I think, but after the pompous announcement of the hurricane of hurricanes, the speakers boom out only an approximation of Blood Fire War Hate, which sounds tired and fed up instead of a fiery cannonade of solidity and HC punch. Max soon finds his salvation in the Sepultura legacy, pulling the Chaos A.D. standard Refuse / Resist out of the treasury. Not that I want to hint at anything, but Max can’t match even his successor Derrick Green, let alone his own, then very high, standards of quality, and the crowd’s chanting was steeped in the smell of sentimentality and nostalgia for times that will never return – or will they? I think a bit maliciously that this would fill Max’s wallet more, but since he does everything at the dictate of his commanding wife, we’ll have to wait until she gives him absolution and permission … The excellent Soulfly legacy is rounded out by the wonderfully rhythmic Prophecy, which I’d say the renewed part of the musical core summarizes well, though a few decibels short of the whole thing is Max, nicely decked out in fashion accessories, who traded music for posing and offering himself to cameras. Back To The Primitive thus sounds too sophisticated and not primal enough, and after every track Max keeps heading backstage to gather strength or comfort. The Slovenian crowd is forgiving and indulgent, and what matters is that the date gets written on the concert list and attendance gets ticked off, even if it’s benign. The energy level stayed at a minimum afterward too, and after the percussion sections set up on stage, we’re suddenly already halfway through the show, and I still haven’t had a concert erection … I figure the reasons for my lack of excitement must be organic and maybe I’ve fallen ill, but a quick glance at the left and right wings of the venue soon shows me that only a few are fully convinced. For most it’s enough to just stand under the stage and, in the style of pre-archaic monoliths, cheer on their comrades in suffering that even the beer isn’t what it used to be, but Šrot is still the same … From his bag of surprises Max »surprisingly« pulls out a Sepultura medley, and if nothing else, at least Arise or Dead Embryonic Cells will sound encouraging, I think. Betting on that horse turns out to be premature too, and, slightly apathetic, I try to claim a spot at the bar, which is apparently occupied by numerous kindred spirits. The determinant of the free fall of motivation continues in a longitudinal drop to an emotional minimum, and the laborious minutes of mangling the Black Sabbath classic Iron Man sneak past, which Max gives a rusty tinge, so in the hope of quick salvation and at the same time out of fear that I’d bring a bitter end to my apathy, I decide to consume the show from a safe distance, chatting with fellow fighters in front of the steel doors of the summer stage.

In the background rang the sounds of 15 years of Max’s creating and searching for the recipe for an elixir of musical immortality, which even the eternal eight in the apocalyptic year of 2012 can’t guarantee. The wealth of ideas had slowly worn away, and the white cherry blossoms of creative infatuation with a naive devotion to music had wilted and faded. The standard-bearers and ideologues of rebellion from my youth have become aged, decrepit fossils from times that will never return, and only a few can match personas like Lemmy, Ozzy, the conditionally excellent Phil Anselmo, the immortal Slayer and the like. What’s left are fragments of once-glorious times, and part of this mosaic of a once-mighty past is also the former first name of the Brazilian metal underground, Mr. Max Cavalera. Aged, tired, more and more alone and misunderstood, he is becoming just a shadow of the man who once moved the masses and kindled the thunder of inner resistance and revolt in their hearts. What remains is conformism, a schematic cross-section of Sepultura’s past that he can’t shake off or surpass, and a pile of unpaid bills that apparently now have to be paid by exploiting and misleading fans and selling a McDonald’s ideology of fast, cheap profit and half-assed satisfaction with bizarre approximations. The desire for gastronomic extravagance has obviously gone down the drain a while ago … For that reason this wasn’t an evening that will go down in the annals of live music as the Soulfly peak in the whole history of the universe, and I sincerely hope that stupidity hasn’t become the new standard or fashionable “must”. If it has, it’s time to legalize euthanasia and hand a lethal dose of salvation to those who have been yearning for it so stubbornly for so long …

Setlist

DEAD DILDO DROME:
1. Machine
2. Opium
3. All Hail Satan
4. Death By Dildo
5. Blackmark
6. Insomnia
7. Musaker

SOULFLY:
1. World Scum
2. Blood Fire War Hate
3. Refuse/ Resist (Sepultura cover)
4. Prophecy
5. Back To The Primitive
6. Seek’n’Strike
7. Intervention
8. Porrada
9. Drum solo + Drums
10. Arise / Dead Embryonic Cells (Sepultura cover)
11. Troops Of Doom (Sepultura cover)
12. Tribe
13. Rise Of The Fallen
14. Plata O Plomo
15. Gladiator
16. Roots Bloody Roots (Sepultura cover)
17. Pain
18. Jumpdafuckup / Eye For An Eye