MAX CAVALERA On 'Archangel': I Have Not Been As Excited About A SOULFLY Album In Ten Years

On June 21, Carmziofa of United Rock Nations conducted an interview with SOULFLY and CAVALERA CONSPIRACY frontman Max Cavalera. You can now watch the chat below.

Speaking about SOULFLY‘s forthcoming tenth studio album, “Archangel”, which will be released on August 14 via Nuclear Blast Entertainment, Max said: “Well, I have not been excited for a SOULFLY record like ‘Archangel’ for ten years. It sounds really exciting, and I am excited. I worked with a great producer, Matt Hyde [SLAYER, CHILDREN OF BODOM], and he understood what I wanted to do: this, kind of, exotic, mystic, biblical kind of record. And he helped me get through, and we did a lot of cool stuff together with the vocals; there’s a lot of chanting and things I’ve never done before with my voice. It still sounds like Max, but there’s a different feeling to it. And there’s some trademarks on it. Like the first song’s called ‘We Sold Our Souls To Metal’, it’s a pure metal anthem. It’s a great song — a declaration of proudness of being metal, and live metal, live the metal life. So it’s, for me, my most honest way to tell the fans that I’m proud to be metal and I sold my soul to metal, so you should [sell] your soul to metal as well. It’s a cool song… I don’t know… I like the album artwork. Eliran [Kantor; TESTAMENT, ICED EARTH, SODOM] did it. And I really like the colors. I think it’s gonna be a big SOULFLY record. It’s our tenth record, so that’s special in itself. It’s not every day you release a tenth record. That’s a feast on its own. That’s a survival feast. [There’s] a bit [of the] Middle East [influence] in the guitar. There’s some riffs that are very Middle Eastern riffs and kind of Babylonian riffs. So it’s pretty cool. That’s from me listening to MELECHESH and BEHEMOTH and stuff like that.”

The lyric video for the song “We Sold Our Souls To Metal”, taken from “Archangel”, can be seen below.

Max previously told Metal Wani about the mindset that is required to write a track like “We Sold Our Souls To Metal”: “It just happens. You can’t explain it. It’s one of those things… [When] you play it, it has an instant reaction on the listener.”

He continued: “I was very curious about that, so I was playing around with the song, playing it for people, to see what kind of reaction it gets. And almost everybody, the reaction was, like, ‘This is so crazy. I can’t wait ’till you guys play this live.’ It’s got this kind of New York hardcore chant that we do in the chorus — like, gang vocals. It’s really, really fun, and everybody gets to sing together. That’s why I was thinking that it’s gonna become an anthem — the chorus, all the fans are gonna sing it together, and it’s saying something. ‘Cause, ‘we sold our souls to metal,’ I think every metalhead feels like that — that we did kind of a pact and we sold our souls for this music that we love so much. So it’s something that I think [they’ll] sing that with some kind of pride. I think it’s gonna happen when that song comes out, at least. And then it ends [in a] very PINK FLOYD [-like way], which is really strange; I don’t know why we did that. I still don’t know if it was the right thing, but it came out like that. Marc [Rizzo] just did some really crazy guitars at the end of it that is just, like… It goes from total metal into crazy PINK FLOYD, but it works. I mean, it’s really wild. And we like wild stuff. I always was drawn to weird, weird stuff, and that’s definitely weird, in a good way.”

Pre-order “Archangel” in a bundle or by itself in multiple formats and from this location.

“Archangel” track listing:

01. We Sold Our Souls To Metal
02. Archangel
03. Sodomites (feat. Todd Jones of NAILS)
04. Ishtar Rising
05. Live Life Hard! (feat. Matt Young of KING PARROT)
06. Shamash
07. Bethlehem’s Blood
08. Titans
09. Deceiver
10. Mother Of Dragons (feat. Richie Cavalera of INCITE, Igor Cavalera of LODY KONG, Anahid M.O.P.)

Bonus tracks for CD/DVD special edition:

11. You Suffer (NAPALM DEATH cover)
12. Acosador Nocturno
13. Soulfly X

Bonus DVD: “Live At Hellfest 2014” (special edition only)

01. Cannibal Holocaust
02. Refuse/Resist
03. Bloodshed
04. Back To The Primitive
05. Seek ‘N’ Strike
06. Tribe
07. Rise Of The Fallen
08. Revengeance
09. Roots Bloody Roots
10. Jumpdafuckup/Eye For An Eye

In regards to the band and the album cover, artist Eliran Kantor states: “I’ve been a fan of Max‘s music ever since discovering ‘Beneath The Remains’ in high school. When my wife and I got married, ‘Territory’ was even played at the dance party part of our wedding.

“Max asked me to do a traditional piece depicting Archangel Michael — and I tried to go beyond the straight-up neo-classical style as that has been perfected centuries ago, so I mixed in SOULFLY‘s own visual world: hence the wings and spear being shaped like the SOULFLY tribal icon, the cliff with the ocean view just like on the first record, and the Brazilian flag being the core of it’s color scheme.”

Speaking about “Archangel”, Max told RockRevoltMagazine.com: “It’s a very biblical, very mystic, very exotic kind of a album. This is a totally different vibe [from 2013’s ‘Savages’]. There’s songs like ‘Sodomites’, about the destruction of Sodom; there’s songs like ‘Shamash’, about the Akkadian god of the sun; ‘Ishtar’ (since retitled ‘Ishtar Rising’), which is the Babylonian queen; ‘Titanomachy’ (since retitled ‘Titans’), which is about the war of the titans. So there’s really more mystic, exotic sounds and songs and lyrics. So it’s really cool. It’s really artistic, the new SOULFLY, which I like about it.”

In a separate interview with Metal Wani, Max called “Archangel” “an interesting record.” He explained: “It’s one of those [records] that come out once in a lifetime, an album like that comes out — really crazy sounds and very different dimensions. It’s more experimental than the other stuff. It’s still heavy as hell, and it’s still fast. And Zyon‘s [Cavalera, Max‘s son] playing drums on it. He’s actually playing really good. He reminds me of a young Dave Lombardo [SLAYER]. The fills that he’s doing [are] really amazing; he surprised everybody in the studio. Matt Hyde is producing; he worked with SLAYER before. So it’s really cool; a really good team.”

SOULFLY will embark on a North American headlining tour at the end of September. Joining them on this epic campaign are Swedish melodic death metal visionaries SOILWORK, Polish technical death metallers DECAPITATED, and hot newcomers SHATTERED SUN.