Like the rise and fall of the sun, leaves that fall from the trees in the autumn and grow back in the spring, Max Cavalera will release new music at least four times a year. Belying his age (fifty-four, although that hardly seems possibly as the man that has be-straddled my entire life in a myriad of musical guises he has operated under), Max seems to be in no mood to lay down his guitar and retire to his dusty hellishly hot hell hole in Arizona where he has called home for the past twenty-five years, just yet. Time seems not have dulled his enthusiasm to create music and for that he should be granted national treasure status and justifiably crowned one of heavy metal’s true innovators. It’s important to recognise what Cavalera has bought to the metal high table, in terms of influence, genuine originality and song writing genius, not only with Sepultura, but also with Soulfly, Nailbomb and the other dozens of bands and side projects he has created over the past thirty or so years. Sure, the quality of his prodigious output may vary and as I mentioned in a review of Go Ahead and Die’s first album last year, this latest venture could be interpreted as a desperate cry to recapture past glories. Cold hearted, certainly, but genuinely, I believe that Max Cavalera loves what he does and let’s be honest, he has more than earnt the right.
And so, to this GAAD’s second album and for those uninitiated to the band, it comprises of Max on guitar and his son Igor on bass as the duo share vocals duties, added and abetted by drummer Johnny Valles (Black Braid, Healing Magic). Their first album was a crusty amalgam of D-Beat punk with a generous dollop of death metal ladled over the top. It was far from finessed rather gritty, groovy, grubby, and grim, but it had heart and a soul to it, with a palpable energy that shifted itself inside your soul and forced you to get in the pit. It wasn’t doing anything new, simply taking the component parts of Max’s musical legacy and blending them into a musical Bouillabaisse. It had the feel of someone who seemed to not worry about pleasing anyone other than himself and his family. And that, at the very heart of this band, seems to be its raison d’etre. To simply embrace his various musical touchpoints and do what he pleases.
Pleasingly the musical blueprint on this sophomore effort is more of the same although there are a few tweaks here and there. Large swathes of this albums content embrace its more death metal DNA but as the album progresses, it seems to segue into more reflective punk and hardcore corners, coming across as less Sepultura and more Nailbomb playing S.O.D. covers. It chugs, slams and scurries along, with guitar riffs, coated with dirt, fleeing the scene of their crime on the back of a dirty, buzzing, distorted high gain bass, as the drums blast beat, swing, and slam alongside. There is a pleasingly ‘do it yourself’ ethos and paradigm at play here, as the production takes a back seat to the intent of the songs, with songs recorded using a sparse production rig, with minimal technology and microphones, that lends the entire album a punk rock credibility that legendary producer Steve Albini would heartily approve of. There isn’t anything on this album that you haven’t heard before in all honesty, but what is enjoyable, is the joie de vivre (apologies for the overindulgence in French cliches within his review, I am off to Paris for a week shortly, so my mind is pickling itself in Gaelic juices) that seems to permeate much of what is good about this album.
It’s also highly enjoyable to swerve, segue and sprint between various the heavy genres at speed especially on the song ‘Blast Zone’ which manages to sound like Obituary, early Doom, Entombed and Sepultura during its brief running time. The album is unapologetically low fi and in your face, unconsidered, (well it certainly gives that impression although I’d imagine there is a fine and detailed plan behind this and anything that Cavalera puts his mind to), unrefined. The album is gloriously refreshing. Yes, it may not reinvent the wheel, but sometimes just doing what you do well whilst playing within the conventions of several hard-hitting genres of metal, smashing them into a pot, giving it a good old stir and then sprinkling in some Cavalera special sauce is enough to set this apart from other albums peddling their wares within this oeuvre. This is a rough, ready, and thoroughly enjoyable romp through the annals of metal, via one’s of its most revered and talented elder statesman.
(7.5/10 Nick Griffiths)
Leave a Reply