“Man, I always wanted to do a song about metal!” proclaims bone fide metal legend Max Cavalera, a vocalist, lyricist and pioneer of playing a four-string (non-bass) guitar, whose humble beginnings began in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and a band with a first album that had song titles such as ‘Funeral Rites’ and the exceptional, death metal anthem ‘Troops of Doom’. Subsequent lyrics have seen him exploring tribal, um, roots, slavery and national tradition, making political comment, discussing personal tragedy and drawing religious inferences and references. And now metal. “30 years and I’d not done one song about metal! And I’m so passionate about metal, so I had to do a song!”
And the song in question, ‘We Sold Our Souls To Metal’, is a fitting opening track to the tenth album from the band Cavalera formed in the aftermath of Sepultura some eighteen years ago. It’s partnered on the record by ‘Live Life Hard’, featuring Matt Young of King Parrot, which is “about how we live our lives. It’s a crazy, hard, insane way of living but we love it and can’t get enough.”
“To be on the tenth record with Soulfly feels quite amazing, really!” continues Max, running through the themes behind the songs of the album in a voice that surprisingly isn’t thick, deep, or yelling, to the point that at the start of the call I had to clarify twice to whom I was speaking (nor does he bellow he wants to “forksheetorp”, more is the pity). “‘We Sold Our Souls To Metal’ is better late than never! ‘Titans’ is about Greece, and there are Babylonian things in ‘Ishtar Rising’ and ‘Shamash’.” Which brings us to closing track, ‘Mother of Dragons’; surely Cavalera outing himself as a Game of Thrones fan. “Yes and no. The song is actually about what people called my wife a long time ago. The song is dedicated to her. I wanted her sons to sing something thrashy in a metal song about their mother, in a cool, heavy way.”
As well as the aforementioned Parrot guesting, a band Max has previously pushed and highlighted, the vicious Nails are also involved. “We had Todd from Nails, who I really like, a brilliant brutal band, one of my favourite albums of the last couple of years, so I had to get him in. We did ‘Sodomites’ with him. I really like the guests on this album because they’re a little bit newer. I also like that I sing on the Melechesh album, Enki (Nuclear Blast) because it’s one of my favourite records that came out this year and I got to be part of it, which was such an honour – it’s a brilliant, brilliant album, particularly the last song ‘Outsiders’.”
It’s interesting to talk to Max about his tastes and the influences on Archangel (“Melechesh and Belphegor and Order of Apollyon; all these crazy bands I’m listening to, we know that influenced the sound of the record.”) and how metal, now more than at any point since he kicked off ripping off Celtic Frost and Venom riffs in 1984, is back coursing through his veins and into his grey matter. “I listen to stuff now I didn’t listen to a long time ago. I am more into metal than I was before. As people get older they get less into metal, I get more into metal!” confirms the 47 year old, thirty one years into a career playing in metal bands and on his twenty-first album. “It happens naturally, and the result is, what I’ve been listening to goes right into the writing and ends up bleeding on the songs”. And Cavalera has been listening to more extreme metal now than at any point since the release of the seminal Sepultura pairing of Beneath The Remains and Arise (Roadrunner).
In order to properly capture the more extreme metal leanings, Cavalera turned to producer Matt Hyde. “I really like the Behemoth record, The Satanist (Metal Blade) and Matt was involved with that, so when I said what I wanted to do with this, that I was influenced by it but not into ripping off, he said “I know exactly what you want, and I’ll give it to you.
“Some (producers) can help get something more out of you that isn’t coming naturally, and that happened during the vocals with Matt” continues Cavalera, talking about what Hyde brought to the table. “There’s some kabbalah on ‘Archangel’, he helped me throw those words in there to make the song even more exotic. We did some chants, like on ‘Sodomites’ and ‘Shamash’ that were really cool.
“That’s the kinda thing I love doing with a producer – exploring new ideas and every producer that’s up for doing that will have fun with me on a record. I’m like a kid in a candy store when recording. There’s no limits with me, in the studio, everything drives me crazy to try it out. I want it more, to make it crazier, over the top, it’s always fun to make records! We had an Iranian singer on there too, very over the top, and I love it.”
Above all, Archangel is perhaps the archetypical “Max Cavalera” album. From the blend of big grooves, hooky deep powerful growled vocals, technical thrashy riffs and stomping anthems, where they say pets resemble their owners, this album is a pure expression and representation of all things that are distinctively Max Cavalera.
“We went in with a very clear head and wanted to make a very different record, and from the beginning we wanted to shake things up. As much as I like Savages (Nuclear Blast), I wanted to do something quite different from that. My own tastes in music has changed through the years and there’s now more extreme metal in Soulfly than before and from the beginning of the writing of the riffs, from the influences that got into the making of Archangel, to the producer we used, it was all new and different.
“I’m very pleased, it’s the right album to make – it’s the perfect tenth album.”
Archangel is available on August 14th through Nuclear Blast
STEVE TOVEY
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