Album Review: Ritual (Soulfly)

After more than three years after their solid album *Archangel*, in between all the touring Max did and the release of their fourth Cavalera Conspiracy album, it is now set for another release by Soulfly, *Ritual*, their 11th. *Ritual* turns away from the biblical themes of *Archangel* and focus on the rituals of metal as well as their lives, including the political ones. The album cover shows mostly reds; in the sky where it rains blood and grounds gets flooded with blood. The reptile-like creature emerging from the ground next to a man that shoots arrow into the red sky with brown-gray clouds reminds me of the monster in the film series Tremors. Now let’s dive into the ten tracks by jumping into the paragraph below.

The first title is, well, the title one, which is a blend of quasi-title track on *Roots* ("Roots Bloody Roots") and title track on *Prophecy*. The track showcases nu metal elements. The next, "Dead Behind the Eyes", is dynamic with different rhythmic sound, including a cool going under and getting the head out of the water sounding towards the beginning. Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe provides storming vocals alongside Max. "The Summoning" has catchy lyric lines ‘Will you take my soul?’, ‘Will you take my heart?’ and ends with dance-like beats which Soulfly never experienced. Wanna evil to place power over you? Well, that’s "Evil Empowered". It’s got powerful beats and double bass by an evil man, well not evil. "Under Rapture" got pretty cool beginning featuring the lyric line ‘cut from life, face the light’. The line could mean that the god is ready to take you to heaven. Then it goes on to the death section containing death vocals by Immolation’s Ross Dolan. "Demonized" is like the most haunted metal song by Soulfly. There’s acoustic in the beginning produced by flamenco guitar by Marc Rizzo and got black metal and industrial metal in them. "Blood on the Street" is my lowlight of this album but has a high story to it. The song is tributed to a Navajo woman killed by police. It seems that Max felt really upset for police to kill that woman and still felt bad for two years until Max wrote this song to soothe his sadful feeling. Rrah… bite the bullet, bite, bite the bullet. The beginning has a tone that sounds like an arcade game from the ‘80s then metal comes around. This song would be a fit on the earliest album, as a bonus track, having the same rhythm as "No" except it is an upgraded version. The next one goes little outside of this album and even the band itself. Whoa, there’s Motorhead track on a Soulfly album!!! What’s the name of the track? It’s Feedback! It’s an appropriate title for going back in the past nearly two decades before Soulfly release their first album. Then the final track is almost not like many others on the album but staying in the tradition for Soulfly. Every album has a band-titled vocalless track except it is designated by Roman numerals. On this one, it is "Soulfly XI". The acoustic sound is made by a couple of Eurasian string instruments and a loungy atmosphere produced by a synthesizer, but one very thing we hear is the saxophone, thus making this song more jazz-like. But what’s missing in this song compared to all other tracks –– drums. Uhhh, no drums, but low-tuned beats were produced by a programmer.

*Ritual* is ritualistic! This is the most dynamic Soulfly album in a while. Max Cavalera may have juvenate themselves during three-year hiatus between album releases. What a job Josh Wilbur did with the recording, engineering and production, but had help with three assistant engineers that made it more dynamic.

7/10