Max Cavalera’s post-Sepultura act Soulfly are back with a surprisingly quick follow up to 2004’s Prophecy, and once again, he shows that his return to metal wasn’t merely a one off revisit back to his glory days.

The metallic aspect featured on Dark Ages (The fifth Soulfly effort to date) is far more prominent than what was displayed on Prophecy, and it’s easy to hear throughout. Although still tribal based in nature, Soulfly (Who aside from Cavalera consist of ex-Ill Niño guitarist Marc Rizzo, ex-Primer 55 bassist Bobby Burns and drummer Joe Nunez) downplay most (But not all) of the world music influences, with the bulk of the album sound more akin to early Sepultura than Cavalera has ever dared before.

On a pure straight out metal level (Meaning that the songs actually feature riffs, the distinctive Sepultura like groove, Cavalera’s possessed vocal assaults and the occasional solo), tracks such as ‘Babylon’ (Preceded by the building introduction title track ‘The Dark Ages’), ‘I And I’ (Although it does breakdown in the middle section with some flamenco work from Rizzo before building back up once again), ‘Carved Inside’, the slower ‘Arise Again’ and ‘Bleak’, the straight out thrash based ‘Frontlines’, the hardcore ganged voiced ‘Corrosion Creeps’ (Giving the track an almost Biohazard feel) and the frantic pacing of ‘Fuel The Hate’ all represent the best components of the album, while vocalist Billy Milano (M.O.D./S.O.D.) adds his considerable weight to the Russian sung/punk based ‘Molotov’ with fantastic results.

As mentioned before, not all of Soulfly’s tribal elements have been discarded. ‘Innerspirit’ brings together the heaviness of the albums start with clean vocals from Serbian performer Coyote, while ‘Staystrong’ (Dedicated to ex-Pantera/Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrell and Cavalera’s grandson Moses) follows the same formula, with Cavalera’s stepson Richie (Who also sings in his own band Incite) providing the contrasting vocals.

The diversity continues with the industrial tinged (Almost Prodigy like) ‘Riotstarter’ (Originally written for Soulfly’s 1998 debut, and featuring a guest appearance from ex-Megadeth bassist David Ellefson), while ‘(The) March’ takes the progression further with a revisit back to Cavalera’s Nailbomb days (1994).

As with all Soulfly releases, the album is finished off with the mellow eleven-minute jam session (Appropriately titled ‘Soulfly V’).

In terms of consistency, Dark Ages is by far Soulfly’s strongest effort yet, and Cavalera’s best work to date since splitting with Sepultura in 1996. Although some of the tribal elements don’t quite work as well as the more determined metal numbers (The same can be said for the rather repetitive lyrical matter too - Cavalera needs to find some replacements for the words tribe and soul!), the album will still win over fans (Of both classic Sepultura and Soulfly) who though the Brazilian had venture too far from his point or origin since the demise of his former group.

» soulfly.com