Review by Josh Felty
Rating: **
I can't tell you a smidgen of anything about Soulfly (as this is my first exposure to them) other than they are fast death-metal. That much is apparent from the opening chords of Omen. This is the sort of death-metal you would use to run off door-to-door salespeople, Jehovah's Witnesses, and little old ladies selling Avon. With the openers "Bloodbath & Beyond" and "Rise of the Fallen", one quickly gets the sort of omen these Soulfly cats are going for. I can't say I didn't enjoy listening to it--I'm just thankful I didn't have a headache. Before or after.
In all honesty, these guys impress me about as much as Pantera. Which is to say, quite a lot. If you can play that fast, that heavy, and still maintain clarity in your screaming and barking, I applaud you. "Great Depression" is just the ditty with such impressive instrumentation. Other metal acts would have outright butchered what Soulfly has gone for on this one--again, I don't have any frame of reference (yet) having not partaken of Soulfly previously. It's apparent these guys have their act together, one which consists of old school 80's shredding, driving rhythm, and an energy that needs to be bottled and sold for the price of a pack of cigarettes. Also, they have to be pretty ballsy to have an ode to Jeffrey Dahmer on this record, called (you guessed it) "Jeffrey Dahmer". There's one called "Vulture Culture" that had me thinking, 'Really? This is a song they decided to keep in out of maybe the dozens they recorded?' But other than that, headbangin' all around. Die-hard followers of these guys will more than likely be at least halfway impressed.
Is this the best Soulfly album of all time? Again, I have no clue. I'm not really the biggest Soulfly fan, but this release was pretty damn heavy. Heavy=good.