Album Review: Primitive (Soulfly)

Soulfly is back with their sophomore album *Primitive* that would prove to be their best. The album is the continuation of tribal instruments used on their first album and on Roots. The album cover uses only few colors, but it’s colorful, looking like it was made by a little kid! It is somewhat reminiscent of the debut album except that a man is replaced by a bird, in this case a phoenix. The songs on this album are really good, I gotta thank Max Cavalera for their masterful efforts. There are couple of weaker tracks in this album, like "Soulfly II", the second band-title track by the band, and rap-infused "In Memory of…". It’s interesting that berimbau is the first instrument that being the album. Anytime I hear the berimbau after the previous song ends while playing songs in shuffled order, whether it be Soulfly across all albums or even across every song I have on my mp3 player with SD card plugged in there, I know it’s the beginning of "Back to the Primitive". "Jumpdafuckup" can be especially painful to non-metalheads and those who do not swear. Corey Taylor of Slipknot brings surprisingly clean vocals to the clean part of that swearful song. Max does all the swearing. The swears don’t bother me, I like this song a lot. Max Cavalera is clever for having his then-young son Zyon play the foosball to be captured on recording and incorporate into the song "Mulambo", which features Mulambo Tribe appropriately enough. "Son Song" has Alice in Chains-like edge where two sons come together and give wonderful tribute to their fathers who both die at age 40. Max sings about his father Graziano, while the other singer, Sean Lennon, sings to famous musician John Lennon now in heaven. Sean’s vocals really sound like Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, then Sean performs piano and synthesizer, he’s talented! "Terrorist" is where Slayer vocalist Tom Araya does the screaming in the style of God Hates Us All. Although I don’t like the way he screams in Slayer album GDUA, I don’t mind for him to do in one song of this album. "The Prophet" is a really cool track, followed by 6-minute instrumental track featuring numerous instruments, plus piano and clarinet. "In Memory of…" is among the weakest track where rappers from Cutthroat Logic come together to sing the longest lyric by any Soulfly song, but this lengthy lyric is typical of rap song. I’m going to fly high because this is the best song of the album, which is also the last track. The song takes off as soon as it starts. There is less exciting part where female vocalist Asha Rabouin sings ‘Just let my soul fly free’ over techno-ish notes. Then exactly like the beginning, the song and the album ends with a berimbau.

Max Cavalera and the company are very effortful in laying out the songs like an artist. If you want to try get into Soulfly, this would be the most effective launching pad towards fandom. This is how I got into Soulfly, although I did listen to debut album and Prophecy prior and only liked a select few. It first didn’t help me become a fan, until I listen to other albums my brother didn’t have at the time on YouTube, including *Primitive*, *3*, and *Dark Ages*. Once I became a fan, I added rest of the songs from the debut album and *Prophecy* and I now have every Soulfly album on me, thanks to Primitive!

8/10