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Released on August 14, 2015 via Nuclear Blast Records
Dear Max,
I hope you don’t mind me writing to you – and this is a tough letter to write – but I feel that someone needs to tell you to take a break. It doesn’t have to be a long one, but by the sound of your latest album, you need some time out. Hey, Archangel is the third release by a band featuring your good self in a little under two years. Heck, it ain’t quite up with The Fall’s insanely prolific output, but such a pace is bound to render the heavy wells dry.
And, I am sad to say, it shows in Archangel, from the first track. ‘We Sold Our Souls To Metal’? Dude, after nearly 20 years in Soulfly and another 13 or so in Sepultura, you of all people should know that songs or bands that include the genre in the name are either megalomaniacs like Metallica or overblown fantasists like Manowar. It pains me to say it, but I expected better – especially as it came from the same mind that gave us ‘Refuse/Resist’. And it is not as if the song itself makes up for the lyrics – which sound like “generic angry” ones that did not make the cut for ‘Jump Da Fuck Up’, way back on the Primitive album.
Don’t get me wrong, this sort of criticism is painful to write because I have been a fan of yours for ages. I blasted Roots before surfing big, ugly cyclone waves. And ‘Refuse/Resist’ formed part of a memorable night with my then wife-to-be. Arise was my release of tension from a bonehead at work many, many moons ago and Dark Ages accompanied me when cycling home in the freezing cold because I couldn’t afford a train fare. Man, I even liked the duet with Sean Lennon. But this album … it just sounds a little tired in parts. Dare I say it comes across like your heart isn’t entirely in it?
The title track is a slight improvement on the opener, with its stomping beginning, but that and the one that follows it, ‘Sodomites’, are undermined by a weird choral background chant. I know the album’s theme is the Old Testament, but you know… While we’re on the subject, I’m not sure if the chorus of ‘Sodomites’ – repeating the song’s title over and over – is a good idea. Mind you, I bet it would be funny to hear a crowd of metalheads chanting it at a gig.
The punky ‘Live Life Hard!’ with the screeching of Matt Young from King Parrot, would be OK if it wasn’t for the screeching of Matt Young from King Parrot.
There are some good parts – ‘Titans’ slows the tempo and allows for a little light and shade that we know you can do so well, when you let your shackles loosen. ‘Ishtar Rising’ and ‘Shamash’ have a decent groove, if elementary lyrics, and ‘Deceiver’ is full of that pummelling heaviness that we have come to know and love. Speaking of ‘Deceiver’, if you see Marc Rizzo, by the way, tell him his guitar work is superb throughout, especially in this song.
It’s cool that you got to jam with so many of your family members for this album – not only did Igor Jr fill in on bass and Zyon is demonstrating on drums that he is there on merit, but Richie, your stepson, puts in some raspy vocals on the final track, ‘Mother of Dragons’, which – and again, I am sorry to tell you this – kind of loses its way after a good start.
Yeah, the album is only a little more than half an hour old and given that you’ve been busy since 2013 with Soulfly‘s last album, a Cavalera Conspiracy release and working with Killer be Killed – apart from touring – you probably haven’t had that much time to put together much more than that. But this is the thing, Max, and it goes back to what I said at the beginning of this letter: it sounds like you need a bit of a break. Again, I am really sorry that I have to tell you this, but I reckon after stepping back for a year or so, you’ll come back with something amazing. Take care.
