Soulfly “Chama”
Soulfly drop their thirteenth album Chama just in time for an Australian tour early next year which includes a spot on Froth & Fury Festival. Chama means flame in Portuguese, so is the album hot?
This incarnation of the band features Max Cavalera, his son Zyon – who takes on main creative and production duties – and Mike DeLeon is in for his first recording on a Soulfly record.
Each Soulfly album takes on a concept, usually around a countries indigenous instrument, and builds from there. This is no different, while there are Brazilian percussive elements expertly managed by Zyon, Max’s adopted home state of Arizona and the Navajo tribe of the area brings the music of the original American people to the fore throughout.
Tracks of genocide, tribulations, hunger and rage all nestle within each other in which musically it bases itself on early Soulfly records mixed with the rapid fury of Enslaved or even the sonic wall of noise of Cavalera Conspiracy records thrown over the top. Think Code Orange or Health with the head banging groove and expertise of Max Cavalera and you’re kind of getting there.
Opener Indigenous Inquistion, a track for the Navajo, is old school heavy riffs and drums intro before switching into Storm The Gates which is slow chugging riff monster. The percussion and Max’s growls of ‘fight the power, fight the greed’ appeasing the old school Soulfly legions.
No Soulfly album is worth its salt without a few gusts stars and in Nihilist we have Todd Jones from Nails laying down some vocals on what is a barrage of sonic blasts like a runaway train that is always threatening to derail, before landing into a crushing slow breakdown of epic one note riffs.
Dino Cazares, lends his rapid guitar work to No Pain = No Power which swings like a wrecking ball. There are real daggers in those riffs, sharp and cutting and you can hear Dino’s guitar work in the subtle parts too with flashes of his main bands’ song Memory Implants weaved throughout.
Arch Enemy’s Michael Amott rips a hole in the universe on Ghenna as the song screams out of your speakers. There’s no space to breath as all the sounds of Soulfly’s last thirteen albums mesh into one giant monster.
The second half of the album slows the pace however is no less dangerous. The pummelling riffs of Black Hole Scum, one part doom, another trash metal, will be a sure-fire moment to savour live.
Favela_Dystopia has Zyon’s drums sound like thunderclaps as he leads the band through multiple time changes from one head banging groove to another. Stank face guaranteed.
Always Was, Always Will Be… has the band begin to lock in the riffs, however it still sounds like cosmic doom is upon us as my desk vibrates to the bad ass riffs before Soulfly XIII, the album’s standard instrumental, slows the whole thing down utilising indigenous percussion and sounds to convey a message just as strong as a blast of guitars.
The title track finishes the album and boy, let me tell you, everything in the previous twenty eight years of Soulfly is thrown into this four minutes of hell unleashed and it’s epic. An ominous drumbeat to start with static riffs, punk chaos anarchy bookended by two different pit inducing riffs and a CinemaScope atmospheric ending. Brilliant.
When you’re thirteen Soulfly albums down – and plenty more musical collaborations too – it can be tough to keep bringing the noise while not going stale. Bringing Zyon to the fore as creative leader, combining modern styles with old school Soulfly and staying true to the spirit of the band, – disruptive, leader, challenger – Soulfly have just done that. It will push you, so turn it up loud and get loaded on the drums and riffs.
Album Review By Iain McCallum
