Album Review: Archangel (Soulfly)

Soulfly had been around for the last 22 years and I’ve seen varieties. Soulfly had been experimenting with many different genres, instruments, and themes, especially between each different album. It has its milestones too, like *Archangel* being their tenth album by the band. *Archangel* have its own theme. The lyrics and music is described as biblical with several tracks containing the specific god or mythological class in the title, like "Shamash", "Ishtar Rising", "Titans", and the self-title track "Archangel". As is common with biblical metal albums, especially by Christian bands, there are a bit of black metal in this Soulfly album. In fact, *Archangel* is the most black metal-infested Max Cavalera album since his very first album with Sepultura (*Morbid Visions*) in 1986. *Archangel* has influences of sounds by several different extreme metal bands like Behemoth, Septicflesh, Melechesh, Belphegor, and Hour of Penace. Also this album mixes the musical styles of *Dark Ages* and *Enslaved*. This album released in 2015 is described as dark, the darkest Soulfly album since *Dark Ages* in 2005. That means both Soulfly albums released in the years that end in 5 are among the darkest!

The first track is the most unique metal track of the album, "We Sold Our Souls to Metal". I’m not too crazy about this track, but it is a metal anthem that tribute to the fans. And the phrase that make up this title is interesting because I can replace the word, like replacing ‘metal’ with different musical genre or even entirely different subject matter. For example, ‘I sold your souls to America’. "Archangel" is a doomy track that has old-fashioned video game tones, followed by Max shouting ‘Arrr-chan-gel’ twice. "Sodomites" has a really good verse that contains Nile-like choir between ‘So-do-mites’. "Ishtar Rising" sounds like a 90s Korn song but unlike Korn this is a biblical song. "Live Life Hard!" has one of the most unique vocals of the band. Matt Young of King Parrot provide high-pitch shrieking voice that a lot of fans claim it killed this song, well to me it’s OK and not really annoying but his voice is not the perfect fit in this song. It is still a very good song, but it would be better if he turn his vocal pitch down just a tad. The guitar rhythm underneath his voice is among the best of this album. "Shamash" is my favorite track of the album. It got the same choir sound in the choruses as in "Sodomites". "Bethlehem’s Blood", also known as "Jerusalem’s Blood", uses the instrument that warn about the impending bloodflood – trumpet. "Titans" is thrashy and rawer than the last few tracks. "Deceiver" is an old-school thrash and is short, reminding some of Slayer. "Mother of Dragons" is not about the Game of Thrones character Danaerys, whom the GOT fans call them Mother of Dragons. Instead its named after the nickname fans call Max Cavalera’s wife Gloria. Their three sons collaborate together only for the first 45 seconds of this 2 min 40 second song, and then there’s another male guest vocals growling. Wait a minute, she’s a female from Master of Persia, doing male-like growls. How does a world a woman growl like a man? In my opinion, the song could’ve last longer by adding more stuff to it, but actually Max was going to have this song to last 1 min 30 seconds, and he extended it as he thought was too short by inviting Master of Persia to it. The bonus tracks have three more songs in there. "You Suffer" is the 10-second cover of the world’s shortest song by a mainstream band, and "Acosador Nocturno" is the same song as "Deceiver" except with all the lyrics written in Spanish. These two don’t care about, well I like the latter and didn’t include in me because it is the same song as "Deceiver". The only bonus track worth having is the Soulfly-title track "Soulfly X". I could call it "Soulfly ten" or even "Soulfly X" (pronounced 'Soulfly Ex') like in Planet X, Static-X, or Symphony X. "Soulfly X" has several Eurasian instruments like duduk, flamenco guitar, and acoustic bass guitar that produce a Middle Eastern progressive art sound somewhat resembling the band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Oh yeah, the acoustics lead guitar reminds me of Led Zeppelin. "Soulfly X" is the only song on Archangel that lasts more than five minutes.

I conclude *Archangel* is the fine addition to the Soulfly discography. In the region of chronology, *Archangel* is a stand-alone album as two of the adjacent albums have different themes. The songs on this album are kind of repetitive just like their previous album Savages, but not so on their next album *Ritual*. Due to their nature, many people don’t like this album nor the last one. To me, I don’t mind the repetitiveness of the albums, as long as they’re my kind of music.

7/10