Max Cavalera could fart out the theme tune to Thomas The Tank Engine and we’d still love it. Twenty years on from Chaos A.D., Cavalera, with his Sepultura legacy now placed in the hands of Derrick Green and co, is still going balls out on Soulfly.
New to the fold is Max’s son, Zyon, replacing David Kinkade on drums. At 21, he’s no doubt a killer drummer, yet Savages is not quite the flagship record for tribal metal that Primitive was, and it doesn’t thrash like Dark Ages.
But there are sweet moments here that hark back to the evolving styles Soulfly are masters of. Fallen smashes you in the face with a fistful of dizzying riffs, Cannibal Holocaust does death metal like last year’s Enslaved, while opening behemoth Bloodshed chugs and crunches like 2002’s 3 album.
Produced by Terry Date, the knob-twiddler behind White Pony and Vulgar Display Of Power, this is slick, groovy and heavy, with famous names (Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris, Neil Fallon of Clutch). Nine albums in, Soulfly still know how to makes us jumpdafuckup.
