By Rod Whitfield
Believe it or not, but Max Cavalera’s main post-Sepultura band, Soulfly, has now released ten studio albums, with the unleashing of their brand newie Archangel. That is four more than he did with Sepultura. Incredible when you consider that he also has myriad other projects that he is involved in. He is arguably the most prolific figure in heavy music.
When asked how he felt about this band hitting double figures in albums released, he had just a single word response.
“Old!” He laughs.
“I feel older than Moses,” he goes on, after the general laughter has subsided, “but yeah, ten albums is exciting man, it’s a big catalogue now.
“But mostly I’m excited because Archangel, I think, is quite different from everything else I’ve done. And we’re getting a really, really good positive reaction from media and fans from Archangel. And that makes me very happy!”
Unlike several of the band’s more experimental previous releases, Archangel is very much a straight-ahead, ball-tearing groove and thrash metal album. That said, a little room was still given to some more left of centre moments on the record.
“I think it might be my most metal album I’ve ever done,” he muses, “which I’m totally okay with. After experimenting with other things for so many years, sometimes you just come full circle, and you go back to where it all started. So it’s all back to metal, and it’s great.
“But I think that Archangel is a little bit of an experimental album too, with the Biblical stuff, and the strangeness of songs like Shamash and Ishtar Rising and Titans, so there’s still an experimental level going on in Soulfly. I think it’s cool, and keeps the band interesting.”
As is his wont, the new album has a number of guest spots from some well-known luminaries of heavy music. The record even has an Aussie metal presence, in the form of a guest spot from Matt Young, frontman from insane Melbourne thrash band King Parrot, who have been taking it to the world stage and making a very nice name for themselves in recent times.
“Yeah, Matt’s a great guy,” he states, “We hit it off really good. And man, what a great voice! He’s just this killer, high-pitched crazy voice. I’m a big King Parrot fan, so it’s a no-brainer that I should put him on the record, and hopefully spread the word of King Parrot to more people around the world. Hopefully after Archangel comes out, more people will know about them, because they deserve to be known.
Cavalera says it was excellent to have him on the record, although their paths never actually crossed during the recording of the track ‘Live Life Hard!’
“I discovered the band when I was on tour, I listened to the record and I really liked it. We went to Australia, and we made contact,” he recalls, “It was my son Igor actually that was in contact with Matt through Facebook, and we made arrangements to meet them at the Melbourne headline show we had with Lamb of God. He came, and brought us a bunch of t-shirts and it was really cool hanging out with him. Right then I told him I’d like him to be on the new record, and he got really excited.
“It turned out that they were on tour in America at the time with Weedeater. We went to the show in Phoenix, and it was a really great show. The next day they played LA, and that’s when Matt went in and did his vocal. I wasn’t there when he did the vocals, but he knew all the parts, we were pretty organised on that.”
The band have some big plans for touring the album, including a very different stage set, which Cavalera hopes they can bring to Australia very soon. An ideal scenario would have King Parrot touring Australia with them.
“I hope so,” he says, regarding the band coming back to Australia on this tour, “because we’re going to make some sort of stage set-up that kinda looks like an Orthodox Church, and hopefully Australian fans can be a part of that.
“I hope we can get King Parrot on tour with us in Australia, so then we can do Live Life Hard! every night!”
Archangel is out on 14 August through Nuclear Blast.
