Metal Reviews

I listened to this album just now on Rhapsody.

Overall, not bad. The nu-metal influences are pretty much gone now. And Max honestly hasn't been this thrashy since Arise (note: I haven't heard Inflikted yet). The album does, however, sound like it's missing a final coat of polish. A little more melody and some longer guitar solos (although the solos that are there sound like they came straight out of Arise) would've been nice. And Max's lyrical writing could use work. Still, a surprisingly solid album from a consistently improving band.

And I agree that Soulfly VI is the best of the six songs in the "Soulfly saga."

I'm not so sure about this being better than dark ages. It is more consistent but doesn't have songs that stood out like arise again.

It's definitely better than inflikted though. How does Max still write so many awesome riffs after so many years in such a short time? Crazy.

Dark Ages was a first step and Conquer is even more in the league of the old pre chaos AD sepultura than early Soulfly or late post arise sepultura albums. And I can understand that many hardcore soulfly fans will not like it, because it's actually a real modern sepultura album - how it should be.

I bought a Soulfly DVD a few years back and hated it. Ever since then I have been ignoring anything they did. Then Inflikted came out and was awesome. And now people are saying that the new Soulfly is better than Inflikted? I must hear this, will probably grab this tomorrow. One person said they found it at a FutureShop? Maybe I can find it at a Wal-Mart during my down time at work.

This is one of my fav. albums this year. It's also the first Soulfly album I've heard. The only song I tend to skip is Unleashed since it's too modern for my tastes. I'll definitely be buying this next time I shop for cds. Anyone heard the bonus tracks that come with the special edition ? Are they worth it ?

I also liked Inflikted, though not as much as Conquer. I guess my next stop should be Dark Ages.

Yeah, I've been keeping my head down after that outburst! Too much booze, a lot of hard debating with a power metal freak in the pub and reading too much Dostoevsky did it!

Yes, I retract a lot of what I said in that post, and certainly don't think that Nevermore sound like a poor man's 'Maiden. If anything, I personally think Warrel Dane's voice is so unique that it rivals Bruce as the best metal voice in the business, hence why I made such a ludicrous connection!

All the same, I still stand by what I said about 'Conquer'. It's a great album and my favourite of the year so far... Besides, I was fed up of this chap in the pub belittling 'commercial' bands like Soulfly, Slayer, Megadeth etc... all the same, I was an idiot for taking out my frustration in this forum, I should know better!

It is indeed a great album, and proof positive that the commercial end of Metal isn't all Triviumesque. As for this, forum, fully agreed, bring on the nukes...

So I finally got all the way through this one...(made a lot of purchases recently, needed to give due time to all of them)

And am I the only person that prefers Dark Ages and Inflikted to this? I mean, I still owe this album a few more listens, but at this stage my impression is: it's heavier, sure, which is great, but the songwriting isn't quite as good.

Take Unleash, for example. The whole song sounds incredibly disjointed to my ears. None of the sections flow into each other well at all. Besides which, Marc Rizzo gets way more chances to really shine on both dark ages and inflikted, and I loves me some slick guitar work.

Inflikted is definitely my favourite album out of the last three Max Cavalera releases. I guess I'll get back to you all once I've gotten through this album a few more times...

It came in the mail yesterday, and I listened to it just now. Awesome album. It's almost like the Arise of the 00's. It has similar drumming, similar guitar work, and even Max's vocal performance is reminiscent of that album. In fact, is it just me, or is Max starting to sound more and more like a death metal vocalist with each consecutive Soulfly album? Of course, there's also a healthy dose of Chaos AD mixed in. And the tribal elements of Roots are also retained (although not as numerous as on Soulfly's first few albums). My only complaint is with the lyrics. Not because they're bad, but because the songs seem to only have about three words per line. This was also a problem with a lot of Max's work with Sepultura.

Yes, Max's growl is much better than his lyrics, heh. I really appreciated how well the ethnic elements were mixed in, rather than the tag-on feel of before this album is almost progressive at moments. Definitely Soulfly's best work to date, and Max's best since Arise.