Soulfly : " Archangel"

Welcome to Max Cavalera's mid-life crisis. In trying to be relevant he has enlisted the who's who of grind-core to guest on this album. So here we go the opener "We Sold Our Souls For Metal" sounds very punk for someone who has sold their soul for metal. Not terrible songwriting, not compelling either. The title track has more of the Sepultura stomp to it. The guitar gets weird and technical over parts and it sounds a little out of place. But this is darker than the first song. There is a grim atmosphere lingering in the background that casts a nice cloud on this one. Granted I have listened to more Sepultura than I have Soulfly as their first album was the only I paid attention to. "Sodomites" seems like an odd topic for an album without Rob Halford on it. Instead they opt for Todd Jones from Nails. Its a decent song, feels a little like Godflesh until it speeds up into more punk section.

"Ishtar Rising" focuses on the groove. It's not unlike some of the songs on the Fear Factory I reviewed last week, which funny enough their bassist left to join. Is Fear Factory bigger than Soul Fly? Pretty straight forward this one almost borders on nu-metal. Matt Young  from King Parrot , who might have one of the most annoying voices in metal is on the cartoonish thrash of "Live Live Hard". The riff in the verse is not too shabby. "Shamash" starts off on a good foot and then the repetitive groove kinda loses me, its not a bad riff I just tuned it out after a while. 'Bethlehem's Blood" sound like an extension of the previous song at first. Good thing they had trumpets to clear that up. The riffs are very similar not a good move to put these two back to back. The strummed guitar is way cooler than the chug overload.

"Titans" switches it up on the chanted chorus that comes close to being sung, its also one of a few moments where I begin to wonder if Max has been listening to Behemoth. They blast off into one of the album's fastest songs "Deciever". It's pretty much what you would expect from them thrashing out. They keep thrashing on the Game of Thrones inspired song "Mother of Dragons" which has his whole clan going in provide vocals. While I like the darker direction they seem to be going in for an album that is supposed to be their shortest album at 38 minutes , but it felt long to me. Overall it works more than it doesn't , so I will give it a 6 and speculate that is would bring them a step closer to a Sepultura reunion.
Th