Soulfly

Clearly inspired by his reunion with brother Igor, Soulfly spearhead Max Cavalera seems disturbingly intense and incensed on latest effort Conquer. While Cavalera Conspiracy were the closest to Roots-era Sepultura we’ve heard from either party in over a decade, Conquer reaches back even further into the realms of hammering thrash metal he helped create with definitive albums such as Beneath The Remains and Arise. Riding the line between Remains’ passionate war cries and Arise’s technical mastery/spectacular production, Conquer becomes a reflective meeting ground, the final realization of what could have been with Sepultura before the fray. Packed with raging screams, double-bass drums, chugging, breakdowns and only the occasional tribal element, which typified Soulfly’s previous work, Conquer finally eliminates the blemishes Cavalera created while trying to live up to his prodigious early years.