Soulfly‘s second release, Primitive, holds true to the typical Max Cavalera (4 strings, terrorist, berimbau, throat and soul) sound, anti-politics and “fuck all the wanna be’s.” In some ways, Soulfly’s CD should have been a Various Artist CD. We have Chino Moreno and Grady Avenell helping out on “Pain“, Corey Taylor helps out on “Jumpdafuckup“, Sean Lennon on “Son Song“, Tom Araya on “Terrorist“, “In Memory of…” has Babatunce Rabouin, Deonte Perry and Justus Olbert lending their talents to the song and Asha Rabouin on “Flyhigh“. I mean, half the album has guest appearances. I guess that’s the cool thing to do now. Don’t get me wrong, I love Soulfly, I love this CD.
In some ways, this album is experimental for Max and crew. There’s some samples, keyboard/pianos, and like I stated earlier, a crapload of guests. In other ways its just good ole tribal Soulfly. I can’t bash the guest appearances too hard, I like all of the songs; Especially “Jumpdafuckup” with Corey Taylor of Slipknot. The song starts off hard and then when it switches to Corey’s part, the song goes mellow and so does he! Yes, Corey yells and screams along with Max, I mean come on this is Soulfly, there ain’t no ballads here. And I have to mention, on the promo CD of Primitive, the opening track, “Back to the Primitive” is 4 minutes and 20 seconds long. I think that was planned. Heh.
The all instrumental “Soulfly II” goes along the lines of it’s pappy “Soulfly” off the CD of the same name. I’ll say it again, the heavier the band is, the better the slow/instrumental songs are. Heavy bands tend not to do slower songs, so when a band puts the song on the CD, you know its bound to be good. Now to the other end of the tempo spectrum, “Terrorist” is by far THE heaviest song on the CD, maybe because of Tom Araya, maybe because it’s just a killer song. Marcelo (bass and percussion), Mikey Doling (guitars) and Joe Nunez (drums & percussion) are all superb on this disc.
I remember asking Marcelo at the Glasshouse a few months back at a Static-X show where he got on stage and helped out on ‘I’m With Stupid’, when a new Soulfly CD was coming out. He replied that they were working on the new CD and that it would take Soulfly to the next level. He was right.
Brian
– brian@unearthed.com
