Savages

Artist: Soulfly
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2013
Runtime: 58:10
Rating: 3/5

Brazilian metal icon Max Cavalera has served us up another new album! He called it »Savages«. Worth mentioning that Soulfly are Max’s band, going all the way back to 1997. Max started Soulfly after leaving Sepultura. With this one, Soulfly’s discography now adds up to nine studio albums, which, when you put them under the microscope, differ noticeably from one another. If Max and the gang started out playing mostly hardcore metal, spiced up with tribal rhythmic bits and even some reggae, with every album since they’ve moved closer to thrash groove rhythms and brought their songs nearer to the sound of Sepultura between “Arise” and “Roots”.  Only a year has passed since the previous album “Enslaved”, and in most cases, albums from bands that follow each other with just a one-year gap are in danger of self-replication. You can easily fall into an artistic trap, meaning a creative step back, clearly noticeable against your earlier body of work. Unless, by some chance, you happen to be one of those rare, lucky musical geniuses with inspiration gushing out of them daily.

“Savages” offers ten tracks and wraps up in just under an hour. The whole story of the new album kicks off with Bloodshed, whose intro is nothing but bare drum hits. Soon a siren sound creeps in behind them, and later the song starts developing in a »doom metal« manner. The alternation between slow and faster rhythms is tied together with melodic guitar lines and some transitional solos too. The interesting thing about the track is that Max sings it as a duet with his son Igor. Yes, you read that right. The first guest vocalist on the album is none other than Igor Cavalera Jr. From there on the album comes alive and develops in a manner close to the character of thrash metal. On the third track, called Fallen, Jamie Hanks from I Declare War joins in as a guest vocalist. The growl vocals, lower guitar tuning and double bass pedal are used in a way that gives the song the outlines of death metal, which lets you draw parallels with the previous album “Enslaved”. Ayatollah of Rock ‘N’ Rolla counts as a »groove« song, featuring the clean vocals of the third guest vocalist, Neil Fallon (Clutch). The song isn’t an artistic standout, and it’s built from four different rhythms, which the band strings together, guitar solo included, over seven and a half minutes. The album gets shaken up next by Master Of Savagery. Rhythmically and structurally, it’s a very well-composed track. The drum work especially stands out here, marked by quick rhythm changes, while the guitars masterfully fill the transitional passages. The sixth track, Spiral, and This is Violence develop practically identically, and in their use of rhythms they lean on the solutions shown in Master of Savagery. On K.C.S. Mitch Harris (Napalm Death) guests on vocals. The song rests on some excellent guitar phrases, but Mitch’s screams don’t bring anything extraordinary to it, and its impact also gets watered down in the closing section, where the song doesn’t move anywhere in terms of ideas. El Comegente has lyrics in Portuguese, and lead vocals on the track come from bassist Tony Campos. The song is punchier at the start, and in the outro it wraps up instrumentally in the form of a »jam«. The album’s hard-hitting closer is Soulfliktion, which, after a striking riff, proves to be an excellent choice in that respect. Cannibal Holocaust is definitely the fastest track on “Savages” and one of the better moments of the new album.

All in all, “Savages” is an album of fluctuating quality. The guitars in the production are wrapped in the expected dose of that familiar “Soulfly rawness”, and the lead lines in the passages are clearly defined in the mix. On the other hand, you can barely hear the cymbals in the production. Given the brutality and “groove” of its predecessor “Enslaved”, “Savages” trails a few steps behind the previous album. “Savages” certainly doesn’t hide its good moments, like Cannibal Holocoust, Fallen and Soulfliktion, but the structure of the rest of the album’s songs doesn’t match the quality of those three. That’s a big shame, because “Savages” could have delivered a top-notch Soulfly record. It has the potential. The album is surely not bad, but we’re used to getting better stuff from Max and Soulfly. With all the experience Max has under his belt, it’s clear that Soulfly are far from a lost cause. “Savages” is best seen as a less successful studio experiment from Max. I’m convinced that in the future Max will serve the masses new studio releases following the familiar Soulfly formula, in which he’s always been most at home.

Lineup

Max Cavalera – vocals, guitar
Marc Rizzo – guitar
Zyon Cavalera – drums, percussion
Tony Campos – bass guitar, vocals on track 9

GUEST MUSICIANS:
Igor Cavalera – vocals on track 1
Jamie Hanks – vocals on track 3
Neil Fallon – vocals on track 4
Mitch Harris – vocals on track 8 

Production

Terry Date

Tracklist

1. Bloodshed 
2. Cannibal Holocaust
3. Fallen
4. Ayatollah Of Rock N Rolla
5. Master Of Savagery
6. Spiral
7. This Is Violence
8. K.C.S.
9. El Comegente
10. Soulfliktion