Metal Anarchy

Max Cavalera was recently interviewed by Jack Antonio and talked about the new Soulfly album. The frontman previously said the effort would be “a return to some of the tribal sounds” of the band’s early material, but now he says it “does have some stuff like that, but the record actually ended up taking a different route when [they] were in the studio.”

Cavalera said the following about some of the themes on the album:

“Some of the stuff ended up being actually kind of political with what’s going on right now. There’s even a song about a Navajo murder that happened on a Navajo reservation — the police killed this young girl and I was really intrigued with the whole story and we made a song out of it.”

He also added the following about the music:

“The record, to me, has a little bit of a ‘Chaos A.D.’ [SEPULTURA] kind of feeling to it — that kind of groove, but also [with elements of] thrash. I don’t know… It’s kind of hard to explain, but it has the sound of right now too, which is cool. It’s a contemporary record — it feels like it’s done right now. I’m really stoked on it. I think it does kind of have that classic ‘Chaos A.D.’ feeling to it, which is great; I think it’s really cool to have that kind of feeling on the record.”

He went on to say it is “definitely different” from “Archangel” and Cavalera Conspiracy’s “Psychosis.” He continued:

“After doing records for so long, I know what I like, and I kind of feel what people want to hear, and that goes hand in hand. My own favorite stuff and what people want to hear are almost similar and that makes life easier.

“I don’t have pressure — the record label is not breathing down my neck to write pop songs and shit like that; I don’t have that. I can go as metal as I want, I can go as heavy as I want. The only pressure is to make something good, something that people are gonna like.”

He also added that he was “a little bit surprised” by the positive response to “Psychosis”:

“I never get that good of a reception to my records — there’s always some people that don’t like what you do. And I think this SOULFLY record has the same kind of quality that’s really cool. The songs just sound good — they’re just powerful songs. And Marc Rizzo [SOULFLY guitarist] is doing some amazing guitar stuff. All the players — Zyon [Cavalera, Max’s son and SOULFLY drummer] did a great job on the drums. I tried really hard to have different topics and different lyrics, so my vocals are a bit different and I’m touching different subjects on the album. So all that together makes it into something special.”

Cavalera still has to sing on two more songs, and the band are still waiting on Ross Dolan (Immolation) to record a guest appearance. Other than that, the effort is pretty much done. You can read a little more about it via a recent update from Cavalera’s wife Gloria.

[via Blabbermouth]