Album Review: Cavalera Conspiracy – Pandemonium

The American author Mark Twain once said “Familiarity breeds contempt – and children”.

 It’s a nifty quote that could be applied to Max Cavalera who, along with brother Igor, head the list of pioneers of Brazilian death-edged thrash metal. Max Cavalera’s literal children, of course, ended up getting involved later, but his musical offspring would be the multitude of bands that he helped establish. Each one of those bands became outlets for Max’s preferred style of songwriting.

Naturally, with so much similar material being pumped out, there stood a case for familiarity breeding contempt. Regardless, fans of his aggressive, tribal metal have stayed faithful and his records continue to sell in their hundreds of thousands. There are no prizes for guessing the content of this third Cavalera Conspiracy album. However, if you’d expected clipped, rapid-fire verses paired with choruses repetitiously bellowing the track title then you’d be a winner.

There are a few little tweaks in Pandemonium that might surprise. Firstly, the album has quite possibly the ugliest cover art I’ve ever come across. Within, the music is marked with an especially haranguing, bleak tone and the emphasis is on more thrash, less groove so expect this to clash heads with early Sepultura material. In the words of Max, “This one is almost grindcore. I was really a dictator in the studio with Igor. So every time he’d go into the groove, I’d be like “Fuck the groove! Go back to the fast shit!” As a consequence it’s inherently evil and is much a case of love by force.

 Marc Rizzo puts in a shift, throwing out fizzed chugs and lightning riffs like confetti and Igor’s got a few ear-plosions in store for us with a gut-punching bass drum. ‘Banzai Kamikaze’, in particular, is a crushing power play with a viscous construction that keeps you on your toes. Other leading lights are the fist-pumping glory of ‘Apex Predator’ and ‘Insurrection’. These are two of the most virulent, callous, putrid tracks from the band to date, and the powerful, anthemic smack of ‘Not Losing The Edge’ is little short of glorious. With Converge’s Nate Newton grabbing the bass from Johnny Chow there’s a stomping backline to drive the album forward with real attack and, as a bonus, he’s employed to howl out the echoing, enigmatic words of ‘The Crucible’ – a track that explores the tale of the witches of Salem.

 Elsewhere, it’s very much a case of business as usual with ‘Babylonian Pandemonium’, ‘Scum’ and ‘Father Of Hate’ (which, being heavily-accented, amusingly sounds more like ‘Fucker Of Hate’) resorting to type. There’s also the Neanderthal charm of ‘I, Barbarian’ and ‘Cramunhao’ to deal with. Both are distorted to within an inch of their life and the former even employs a jarring industrial edge that simply falls flat. It’s not long before the similarity between tracks does become tiresome and you do find yourself gasping for change. They eventually oblige, raising their heads for the closing tribal pots-and-pans tub-thumper ‘Porra’. Fans of Soulfly should know the script, but this also employs a curious Manu Chao-esque vocal rip and has a danceable latino vibe that it returns to between the messy, gruff sections of grumbling, dissolute thrash.

Pandemonium isn’t going to blow your mind. It is way too predictable for that, which is a shame when you consider the exciting hardcore edge that Blunt Force Trauma offered. Fans, however, will lap this offering up and they should. Amidst all the familiarity, it has enough grunt to kickstart a pit all of its own. Under this particular guise, Max, Igor and Marc do seem to produce their best work.

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2014/11/04/cavalera-conspiracy-pandemonium/

Album Review: Soulfly – Enslaved

Sepultura is Max Cavalera’s teddy bear. It’s clear he not-so-secretly wants it back and he’s going to bloody stomp around until he gets it.

Ever since he joined forces with drumming brother Igor and Soulfly guitarist Marc Rizzo to form Cavalera Conspiracy in 2007, his songwriting has regressed – power is in, style is out. He appears to be dragging both bands back through time in an effort to recreate his best work with Sepultura. Cavalera Conspiracy’s latest album, Blunt Force Trauma, drew multiple comparisons with both Sepultura’s Chaos A.D. and Arise and, now, new Soulfly drummer David Kinkade (Borknagar, Arsis) has happily described this eighth Soulfly album as “Arise on crack”. Of course, many might find this quote thrilling (obviously Kinkade’s intention), but I’m afraid it’s activated my hypersensitive cynicism chip. Let’s face it, the differences between Max Cavalera’s projects have never been exactly numerous, but it starts getting ridiculous when his own band finds it easier to identify their new album with a whole other band’s back catalogue.

A legend Max may be, but his vocal delivery and songwriting is becoming just too formulaic and indicative for his bands not to all sound like one another. It’s all aggressive delivery, blast-beats and gang-chanted inflammatory words; words like, I don’t know, “Intervention” (from Enslaved), “Dictatorshit” (from Roots) or “Thrasher” (from Blunt Force Trauma). Three songs, three different bands, one style of writing. Of course, all this pontificating would count for shit if this album rocked like a bastard. So does it?

Well, the hellfire that is unleashed from the beginning certainly shows they mean business. Crawling panic gives way to hints of black Viking metal in the startlingly effective introductory piece, “Resistance”. Then “World Scum”, featuring the demonic bellowing of Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitation), attacks the subject of the atrocities performed by mankind with Max’s usual brand of directly astringent lyricism in effect – “Hiroshima, Nagasaki, brutality”. Along the same lines, “Redemption Of Man By God”, featuring the vocal of Devildriver’s Dez Fafara is even feistier.

Kinkade and new bassist Tony Campos (Aesino) pretty much set fire to everything they touch which, if you’re a fan of battering thrash, should get those pits spinning nicely. Sadly though, the hellishly quick tempo too often results in over-simplification, and doesn’t allow space for much of that famous tribal influence to kick in. Punch is in, refinement is out. In fact, unless you merely want brawn and no brain, it’s easy for boredom to slip in having heard this all before so many, many times.

In the past, Soulfly have always been the most likely to seek adventure but there’s only mere hints of that here in the tailored sound effects (rattling metal during “Chains”, gunfire and marching during “Legions”), Rizzo’s guitar solos (even these have shrunk from their former glory) and, most notably, for the track “Plata O Plomo” – a Hispanic version of Cavalera Conspiracy’s “Warlord” with tassels on. It all serves as a makeweight for the missing instrumental “Soulfly VIII” whose obligatory excellence only features on the album’s Special Edition. The small section of Spanish guitar is exactly the reason why, in the past, I have preferred Soulfly over Max’s other bands who simply walked along the path of least resistance – moulding hardcore and thrash into an oversimplified, twisted death metal shape.

Of course there are both high and low points. The fighting duo of “Gladiator” and “Legions” are a microcosm of the album’s successes and its failings. The former has a solid crack at grasping the theme of slavery, breaking the pace, shifting rhythms to inject much-needed structural complexity and diversity, whilst the latter rips it and grips it only to thrash itself up into a repetitious, cyclical frenzy.

In automotive terms, this is like hearing the band forget they are driving a vehicle with a manual gearbox. They are ignoring the stick-shift and simply pumping their foot on the gas, making the engine whine like a wounded animal. When they do crunch through the gears, some of the decisions taken are head-scratchingly odd – why “American Steel” tries a limp, warbling, psychedelic guitar effect after running into a brick wall is beyond me. It’s completely at odds with what’s gone before it.

If you’re looking for a reason why Enslaved is a step backwards for Soulfly though, try “Revengeance” on for size. It’s a bit of a personal vehicle for Max and his family, featuring all three of Max’s sons, and is a tribute to his other son who died in a car accident back in 1996. It doesn’t feel much like a part of this album; a vitriolic stand-alone with several clashing vocal styles. With little personal quirks featuring throughout, it’s hard to know quite how to react to it.

The main trouble with Soulfly creating these heavier, less risky albums is that they are slowly making themselves redundant and, as a by-product, potentially putting fans out of pocket. We’re beginning to ask ourselves, “Why should I buy the new Soulfly when I can buy the new Cavalera Conspiracy and get more-or-less the same album?” Let’s face it, you’d always pick the one with Igor in, right? It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if Soulfly continued to pump out stone-wall classics but following the lapses in quality displayed by both Conquer and Omen, the band really had to nail this one… and they haven’t. Plain and simple. So, Andreas Kisser, please give Max his teddy back; it might just save his Soulfly.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/soulfly-enslaved

Album Review: Cavalera Conspiracy – Blunt Force Trauma

Is it me or are Cavalera Conspiracy and Soulfly albums slowly morphing into one another, becoming indistinguishable, both absorbing that old Sepultura output of clichéd lyrics loaded with call-and-response chorus keywords, pedal-to-the-metal groove, death-edged vocals and blistering stringwork? I know about the odd differences in personnel and equipment, as well as CC’s thrash gearing compared to Soulfly’s tendency to get all conceptual on us, but if you blindly play any Cavalera album these days, like Omen, like Arise (yes, I really am dragging Sepultura in here) and now, this, Blunt Force Trauma you’d probably have a job working out which band’s disc is spinning.

While I await your wrath at even daring to suggest such a thought, can I just point out that it doesn’t really matter who the band is. It’s that patented Cavalera sound and I can’t think of many finer things to be listening to than that. It may sometimes feel like a conveyor belt of clones but it’s Max fucking Cavalera, plus either the guitar god Marc Rizzo and/or drumming fiend Iggor “Two G’s, please” Cavalera too, so who gives a shit? You are holding a blueprint that hasn’t only proved successful once, it’s hit the jackpot three fucking times – and that’s not including Nailbomb!

Interestingly, Max himself, in wanting to make a really intense album, sees this not as a pooling of his own bands but one that draws on the hardcore angst of Minor Threat and the dastardly thrash of Slayer – a move that he thinks will make their debut album Inflikted “sound like pop music” (has he forgotten about Joe Duplantier’s ear-mashing role on that one already?). It does, though, lead me to excitedly gesticulate at the fact that Roger Miret (Agnostic Front) opens up his lungs on “Lynch Mob” – the first halved-beat chorus being the exact point when this album really takes off. Along with “Killing Inside” these form full-blown thrashcore tracks that sound more like Chimaira does Hatebreed with all the associated beatdowns, chugs, industrial elements and mind-blowing string-bends. Both have astonishing, suckerpunch choruses that will shatter your perceptions of what this band are capable of when they really let loose.

Also consider the moments of pure Municipal Waste meets Evile adrenaline where the sick speed-shred utterly dominates tracks like “Thrasher”, “Rasputin” and “Target” which rip a path of chaos through the whole album. Having said that, there’s probably still one too many moments where that Cavalera blueprint is in use – the still catchy-as-hell “Warlord”, the expletive-loaded “Torture” and the bruising title-track for instance. They are heavy enough but, sadly, sound all too familiar with Max’s stylized, staccato delivery and Rizzo’s armpit guitar shreds dominating everything. If you look closely enough I reckon you could spot the edges of the molds they’ve been cut from.

Basically, what we have here is heavy metal fine-tuned to fuck you up. The glorious, loin-curdling battery of the instruments will draw you into the pit and the primitive vocal will easily get you wailing. It’s got a little bit of everything thrown in – standard metal clichés for the mindless (“As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I feel no fear”, “eye for an eye” and, best of all, a whole string of them together for “blunt force trauma, violence disorder, suicide bomber, now you in a coma”) and war-chants for the angry to get their pump on to (“Torture, motherfucking torture” and “I speak hate, do you understand?, I speak hate”). On top of all this carnage, Rizzo has some mind-blowingly cool stuff to play to you, from those key (yet suddenly generic) faux-feedback whips, fingerboard-taps and echoing, proggy sections, right up to technical and neo-classical riffs and solos that simply defy belief.

There are some tracks here that are already my absolute Cavalera favorites but, if you consider the aforementioned regurgitated Soulfly/Sepultura material and the actual album’s full running time of 34 minutes, I can’t hand-on-heart demand that you splash the cash on this. Due to the panic-stricken pace of what’s on show, that half-hour goes by in a flash. There are definitely little glimpses of genius here but we are aching now to see more of Cavalera Conspiracy thinking outside the box, and not just when they draft in a guest or go apeshit with a Flag or Sabbath cover (Extended Edition? – get some).

Also online (with 30-sec samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/cavalera-conspiracy-blunt-force-trauma

Album Review: Ektomorf - Redemption

For a band that will soon be celebrating two decades together, you’d think that Ektomorf would have generated more of an impact than constant referrals to them aping the Brazilian groove metal bands you’d naturally associate with the Cavalera brothers. In recent years, they have combined with Tue Madsen, who always brings an extra level of polish to the party and, with his help, they appear to have been making potted attempts to move away from these tired comparisons by focussing on their hardcore side. However, no matter where you look for inspiration on the band, the names Sepultura and Soulfly still keep hoving into view. Unfortunately, Redemption isn’t going to offer what it says on the tin or, similarly, change many folks’ opinions, but it does indeed offer a little more in the way of variety.

Delving straight in, the band resort to type echoing Soulfly’s more recent output with vocalist Zoltán “Zoli” Farkas spitting swathes of machismo that, incredibly, peak with the same imploding vocal effect so readily used by Max Cavalera himself – have this band no shame? The swirling crush of crust-steeped driven metal has the same bloodthirsty, balls-out feel about it that Omen engendered, whilst the ‘call-to-arms’ lyrical content easily matches that which so dominated Conquer – “Last Fight” being every bit the equal of “Blood Fire War Hate”.

The BPMs soon drop for “I’m In Hate” and a chilling, blackened, acerbic edge creeps in, whilst “God Will Cut You Down” piles on the vicious hardcore to spawn a disappointingly weak, one-dimensional Hatebreed-style bruiser. Surprisingly for a producer as well-respected as Madsen, the snare drum all too often sounds remarkably like someone hitting a bin lid, but this fact pales into insignificance when, out of the blue, we’re matching it up to Nirvana licks. Yep, the four-chords that run through “Never Should” are disturbingly close to those of “In Bloom”; Zoli’s vocal predictably cracking into a roar as the band power into each chorus. To ram the point home, “Sea Of My Misery” strums out a spot of contrastingly clean acoustic guitar and crisp, downcast vocal clearly inspired by those same features that mark out “Polly”. All this implies that the band are happy to diversify but simply seem unable of writing anything truly original.

Danko Jones makes a brief, uninspiring appearance to lash out a spot of punk n’ roll for “The One”, before Ektomorf bring it home with the funked-up hook and rumbling bass whump of “Revolution” (bringing early-Skindred to mind), a series of irksome softly-spoken verses that haunt “Stigmatized”, and the fiendishly explosive Machine Head-esque groove that rolls around ‘Anger’.

As songwriter, and last remaining founder, Zoli has to take the majority of the blame for the band’s continued mash of uninspired mediocrity (dropping the F-bomb and repeating the track-title ad infinitum doesn’t make a song instantly great), but this was never going to be about Ektomorf trampling on everything that has made them such a well-received live band. As a standalone album, it’s an absolute dog – scarily cantankerous, loveably daft and full of barking-mad anthems; an album that simply sits up and begs to be taken out for a walk.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/ektomorf-redemption