Album review: Soulfly – Chama

There’s no rest for the wicked. Massimiliano Antonio Cavalera may have just entered his 57th year on our blue, green and increasingly grey planet – a point at which most of his contemporaries are seriously slowing down if not altogether calling it a day – but the indefatigable icon has undertaken an outrageous workload. Not content just reviving revered industrial project Nailbomb and revisiting Sepultura classic Chaos A.D. with Cavalera Conspiracy, he’s also re-lit the engines on Soulfly for this pulverising 13th offering.

Actually, pulverising might be an understatement. Named after the Portuguese word for ‘fire’ and, more specifically, the Brazilian battle-cry popularised by UFC legend Alex Pereira, Chama feels like defiant proof that Max and his bandmates are burning hotter than ever.

Never ones to knowingly under-do the bludgeon, the release of sheer primeval force as first song proper Storm The Gates explodes into life will startle even longtime aficionados. Hammering away like a cross between Cavalera at his heaviest and Mick Gordon’s hell-raising Doom soundtrack, those brutal 161 seconds culminate with what appears to be the sound of the plug rattling loose on an overloaded amp-stack. Nihilist somehow cranks the planet-eating power further, before No Pain = No Power pummels things back into the earth with the tribal rhythms of 1996’s Roots and 2000’s Primitive alongside a contemporary serrated edge evocative of Slipknot and Fear Factory.

There’s absolutely no letting up, for the first three-quarters. Grindcore influence bleeds through in the 1,000-mph Ghenna and the gnashing politics of Black Hole Scum, with shades of Ministry and Napalm Death looming large. Always Was, Always Will Be is more of a celebration of Max’s own legacy, pulling back an iron curtain to reveal a host of cheeky aural nods to the great man’s past glories.

Boldly pumping the brakes in the final movement, Chama is a record that leaves fans with something to chew on. Soulfly XIII is a spacey instrumental that could’ve been written to soundtrack an ayahuasca trip deep in the Amazon jungle. Then the ferocious title-track drags the listener along for the subsequent vision quest, through a last blast of weirdly distended sonic violence and into the proggy beyond. It’s a remarkable statement from a band many have long since written off as a spent force: somehow harder and heavier than ‘in their prime’, yet also still able to upend expectation with real soulfulness and experimentation. Superb.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Sepultura, Machine Head, Slipknot

Chama is released on October 24 via Nuclear Blast