INTERVIEW: Max Cavalera from Soulfly

Is Ritual, the new for 2018 release from Brazilian icon, Max Cavalera and his cohort in Soulfly, the strongest album by the collective since Cavalera launched the band in 1998? Eleven albums into a career with Soulfly, and six with one of underground metal’s greatest accomplishments via the success of Sepultura in the 90’s, Calavera should know a thing or two about crafting high quality heavy metal, so let’s not get too carried away.

Ritual is a seriously impressive album either way one chooses to look at it. The tribal rhythms are still there however they don’t overpower the music in the signature manner of much of Cavalera’s material. Brutal, grinding, down tuned guitars steamroll over some exceptional drumming and percussion all complimented by Cavalera’s bark of a vocal.

Cavalera has a lot to say about the album, so its best the man himself tells you all about it!

“My take on this record is… I came in with an idea of what I wanted to do and that’s why we hired Josh (Wilbur- Producer) in trying to kind of capture a little bit of the stuff that was missing in the Soulfly sound on the last couple of records. Continuing my love for aggressive music and extreme music. So that’s why when I was making the record, I was saying I’m making a tribal death/ thrash record. I don’t think that’s too far from the truth in how the album actually came out because I think the album has extremely awesome tribal grooves together with extremely awesome, fast, aggressive, death/ thrash metal moments.

I think what is interesting is that the power of the groove is almost as powerful as the death/ trash elements. Which is crazy because I would assume that the death metal elements would have surpassed that. But if I listen to a song like Ritual, to me that thing is just relentless, a powerful hit in your face. From the moment that you hear the Navajo chant with a guitar, it’s… the war is on! It’s time to go to war! I feel that we are (really) trying to evoke these old feelings from the first records… especially the first record and Prophecy (’04), which are the two that I liked the most out of Soulfly’s career, I think that Ritual is a combination between those two”.

Catch all that? There’s more, particularly if you are a fan from the 90’s…

“There’s a little bit of Chaos AD (’93- Sepultura) also in there and even a little bit of Schizophrenia (’87- Sepultura) in songs like “Dead Behind the Eyes”. Some new stuff like “Blood On The Street” felt great, its got a little bit of black metal in there. Um, you know, “Feedback!” has that Motörhead beginning… it’s cool. I think it’s an entertaining record, but also kind of a serious record, like some of the lyrics are really powerful, about the corruption of the politics in the world. Some of the songs relate to spiritual things like “Under Rapture” and “Demonize”. “The Summoning” is about the tribes and the corruption of white people in the tribal system.

Then you have “Behind the Eyes”, which is (about) the Cenobites in Hellraiser and the whole Clive Barker universe. It’s crazy, on the same album I’m singing a song like “Demonized”, which was inspired a little bit by the Bible with verses like ‘the seven thunders’, and I am also influenced by Hellraiser and the Cenobites … that just shows how kind of opened my mind works!”

Cavalera certainly has a way with words, as he does in crafting meaningful heavy metal! There is a lot of music out there these days, most of it highly accessible via Bandcamp and God-only-knows how many streaming services, Ritual is an album that should satisfy mainstream metal fans as much as underground aficionados and is a credit to Cavalera’s tenure as an uncompromising artist and musician.

Purchase Ritual through iTunes here. Ritual is out via Nuclear Blast on October 19th.