Album Review: Savages (Soulfly)

Just a year-and-a-half after *Enslaved* came out, Soulfly released another album—*Savages*, their ninth. Max Cavalera was aware of the news around the world, so to suit his mood, he wrote Savages based on the current state of humanity that people kill each other, they’re savages! Like many of the Cavalera records, the songs on this album are about violence, hatred, and other acts, again based from the current state of humanity, as well as inspiration from pop culture, as seen in the tracks "Cannibal Holocaust" and "Ayatollah of Rock ‘n Rolla". There is repetitiveness here and throughout, such as seen in the track "Fallen".

"Bloodshed" starts out what I call it war siren then brings war with grooves that lay waste to the land strewn with dead bodies. Igor Cavalera Jr. help his father bring war to the song. "Cannibal Holocaust" has a down-tuned riff to such an extent that this is the weakest song of the album, but another inferative goes into my favor that this is the shortest song of the album. "Fallen" has grooves that reminds me of boomerang that spit out of the mouth, go so far and get back to the thrower. Aside from repetitiveness, it got guitar tones here and there, such as first one that begins the song. Let’s rock ‘n roll baby! That’s how Max pronounced the song title of the fourth track in the movie Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (I’m not talking about Max Cavalera, but the other Max played by Mel Gibson)–"Ayatollah of Rock ‘n Rolla"! The outro has a quiet bassoon and a drum that sounds like someone is stomping rapidly. This is one of the better and more interesting tracks of the album. Hey, this album has a master! It is found in the song "Master of Savagery", which is very good for the first three minutes, followed by the weakest part of the album. The bass solo has a dark ambient part and what sounds like a woman screaming that promotes feeling of being sad in a gloomy place. Hey look, there’s a spiral in the sky, that’s a happy sign!, ushering them into the next track, "Spiral", which is another good track, but there is no weakness in this one. It got a bridge that sounds like Machine Head whom Soulfly is associated with. The outro has the sound of what could be the recording of a tone that has the same tuning as the grandfather clock and the sound of the roller going back-and-forth on a brown bag. That’s another instance in which Soulfly experiment with sounds taken from other metal bands. Then things get violent in the song "This Is Violence". This is one of the best tracks of the album because of its bouncy riffs. "K.C.S." got up-and-down verse featuring Mitch Harris of Napalm Death whose voice sounds like a zombie. "El Comegente" is the most epic track of the album, having like two songs in one. The first part got slow-moving grooves and then around 5 minutes into the 8-minute track would give way to acoustic part that provide calm after the metal storm (at least temporary). If you want to hear more acoustics in this album, go to "Soulfly IX", we’ll takes about this in one second. "Soulfliktion" is a thrashier track then slows down into sorrowful riff before it the ends. After a groovy "Fuck Reality" about zombies, "Soulfly IX" is a reggae-jazz song that has use of acoustic bass guitar and flamenco guitar, but it has no tribal instruments.

I first didn’t like Savages except for two of the singles "Master of Savagery" and "Bloodshed", and now I like the album pretty much after few listens.

7/10