Album Review: 3 (Soulfly)

Look at the title of the third Soulfly album, it’s only a number. What number is it? Appropriately, it’s the ordinal for the album by the band–*3*. You see on the album cover that the number 3 has a tail!!! You say the number could be an animal? Not necessarily. What you see is an aum (or om) symbol on what looks like a sand. In all, this is a likeable cover to look at! The photo may have taken from the area around Mesa, Arizona where this album was recorded. The album is the continuation of Max’s tradition of using tribal instruments and having nu metal elements since Roots, Max’s last album with Sepultura. There are retinuation of songs that explores different areas of talk, well, even the titles have something to say, like "Downstroy" and "Tree of Pain". At the time when Max and company started writing material for three, 9/11 attacks had just happened, and Max said what the hell just happened. Think god we wasn’t in New York City at the time, he was at a very comfortable distance in Arizona. Hearing this biggest news of the generation influenced the writing of the song for the upcoming Soulfly album. The title "Downstroy" suggests that it is a portmanteau of ‘down’ and ‘destroy’ and was inspired by the way the World Trade Center were destroyed in downward direction on 9/11. "Downstroy" and "Seek 'n' Strike" is a good one-two punch with music crafted in a strikingly pleasant way.

"One" got Cristian Machado of Ill Nino who adds smooth vocals to the Soulfly song whose musical style resembles Korn. "L.O.T.M." ("Last of the Mohicans") has some of the best riffs of the album. "Brasil" (Portuguese name for Brazil) has Brazilian rhythms and features tribal percussions and stuff, and the lyrics written in Brazilian (actually Portuguese in fact) mentions about his home country of Brazil and their culture. And it has Korn-like riffs, which doesn’t have Brazilian influences like Soulfly. Now it’s time to calm down in the woods, put your headphones on and listen to "Tree of Pain"! It’s a neat ballad with female vocals by an African American which gives them power of feelings to being out in the nature. Well, the soothing ballads surround angry metal with three singers growling, grupping, and screaming terrifying that will kick you over the lounge chair you’re sitting at the woods. So "Tree of Pain" has two very different songs in one track, enough to warrant a name for a metal part, something like "Shaking Tree of Pain", eh eh eh eh eh. For those who dislike metal but loves the ballad, a listen would analogize the ballad part as the "tree" and the metal part as the "weed". The song is dedicated to tragic death of Dana Wells, who soft sounding ballad and vocals prove to calm the sadful feeling about losing a loved one too. Then we’ll get out of the woods and go right into the class with "One Nation" that starts with Pledge of Allegiance, recorded when one morning while recording the Soulfly album, Max Cavalera went to school, not to being in class taken notes and doing projects, but to record the Pledge of Allegiance that kids in classroom sing first thing in the morning every day. Outside of P.O.A., the song has slow-moving metal riffs and it’s political. The song respects the U.S. being just one nation, especially coming off 9/11 attacks carried by another nation. Then after that, silence for one minute. You’re hearing the song titled "09-11-01", well it’s not actually a song because you hear nothing. This is one that is dedicated to victims of 9/11. For nowadays, it is not quite the worth to have this as it now happened long ago and I don’t include the track in the album I have in me. "Four Elements" was assumed to be about earth, fire, air, and water. But none of these words appear in the song’s lyrics. Rather, the four elements mentioned in the song are heart, fist, soul, mind. Between these four elements is the tribal part featuring a Brazilian percussion and sitar. Then the third edition of Soulfly-titled track. It’s tribally, worldly, and loungy. This is one of the weaker tracks of the album and slightly weaker than other instrumentals to date. After the Brazilian track "Sangue de Bairro" ("Blood of My Neighborhood"), there’s "Zumbi". Like "Four Elements", it doesn’t actually have this word in the lyrics; like "Soulfly III", it does not have lyrics, but unlike "09-11-01", it has a song. It essentially has two songs in one. The first part has tribal percussion and berimbau, then the second part is sweeter. It has recorded sound of wind chimes and soft strumming which give them power of being out in the pleasant environment. If the song has lyrics, it would be about the great Brazilian leader Zumbi. "I Will Refuse" is a song I don’t like; it starts with lengthy bass solo performed by Max Cavalera. "Under the Sun" is a Sabbathy song featuring members of Black Sabbath as writers, including great Ozzy Osbourne.

All in all in all, *3* is a respectful album for tribe fans, with songs inspired by what happened to the world at the time, especially 9/11. There’s political themes in them, in addition to spiritual themes and violent themes.

6.6/10