Dark Ages

I have been listening to soulfly since 2001 and so far this is my favourite and probably their best,its an incredible album and if you like metal i urge you to give it a listen!

Good.

After the 5star Prophecy,comes this.Another 5 star effort of pure thrash mayhem.Max in top form,feeds our hunger.5/5

Delivered as expected, all good!

It's okay, but not great & a little depressing. Just death metal & groove metal.

Soulfly's fifth studio album Dark Ages caused the public to reassess its negative views on Soulfly when it was released back in 2005, and begin to take the band seriously as an actual band and not just a side project.The music is harder, faster and darker than previous Soulfly albums had been and sheds much of the bouncy fun riffs in favour of harsh thrash metal pounding and high speeds.Lyrics on the album and interviews the band gave around the time spoke of the album's connection to Sepultura's Arise album in a (cynical?) attempt to draw in the very fans who'd been dismissing Soulfly all this time.The album is much more thrash centric, with a few punky sections a few of the bouncy sections of old but with much less of the tribal jam sections that were on other albums for the last minute or so of most songs. It may actually have been a mistake however, as the album is kind of dull and the only variety (such as the dance influenced Riot Starter) is out of place. For all its attempts to draw a thrash audience, it isn't a very successful thrash record and beyond that it is only a good Soulfly record, but uneven with a bit of what seems like filler and some experiments which just don't work.The album isn't all bad however, highlights include the pounding `Arise Again,' which is good despite its questionable motives and the unusual `Innerspirit,' which mixes the band's previous sound of clean bits and tribal sounds with a very dark style reminiscent of Machine Head's The More Things Change album.In conclusion; Dark Ages may be a lot of people's favourite Soulfly album historically, or because of the hype around Max's supposed return to thrash, but as with all Soulfly albums the first few songs are brilliant but the album as a whole doesn't fully live up to the standard they set.

Soulfly have never been my favourite band, quite often seeming more like a vehicle for Max Cavalera to exorcise the Sepultura demons of old as he distanced himself from the band that once catapulted him to stardom.As a result a number of previous Soulfly tracks have seemed only half-finished. The experimental nature most prevalent on Sepultura's legendary 'Roots' album was taken to the next level, but the metal music underpinning it all was undeniably lacklustre. Max received a lot of criticism for this, fans and critics alike pleading for something more.With Dark Ages, Soulfly certinly deliver. Adopting an almost stripped down, back to basics approach these songs are faster, harder and more brutal than this band have ever been. The tribal drums and ethnic instrumentation is still present, but this time it takes a back seat to the thunderous metal sounds.I for one consider this a spectacular return to form, and implore others to give the album a try. Even if Soulfly have never been your 'thing' before this disc may just change all of that.

Max Cavalera has gone back to the primitive (if you’ll pardon the pun) and created an album which is very much inspired by his roots (again, pardon the pun.) This album sees Cavalera going back to his glory days of Sepultura and Nailbomb, writing downtuned bottom string riffs reminiscent to those off his most successful albums. An example of this is track five, ‘Arise Again’. The clue is probably in the title. Obviously inspired by Sepultura’s ‘Arise’ era, thrash riffage, gang vocals and with a hauntingly melodic guitar solo. Another stand out track is ‘I and I’. Yet again a full paced thrash anthem with heavy breakdowns for those mosh pit maniacs. In this track you get a full mix of what Soulfly is about, the heaviness, the trademark Max Cavalera shout and the instrumental. It’s like having bread without butter. On this release however the butter has been scraped on and scraped off. There’s significantly less of it on the Dark Ages’ predecessor, Prophecy. A clever move, I must say. Even myself, the most dedicated of Soulfly fans, finds the instrumental experimentations tedious. There is just one totally instrumental track, which is entitled ‘Soulfly V’. These are almost a tradition now on Soulfly albums, so it is forgiven. On the limited edition album you also get three bonus tracks. Two of which are live versions of ‘Seek ‘n’ Strike’ and ‘Prophecy’.For the first time in Soulfly’s history, Cavalera has kept the same line up for two albums running. His second clever move. This is probably showing promise, as this is their best album since their self titled debut back in ’98. It shows that if a band are playing together long enough, they can work well together and produces monster records such as this.Be sure to check them out on tour in January and February of next year for an unmissable live show.