Soulfly  - Prophecy
Label: Roadrunner Records
 

Tracks: 1. Prophecy 2. Living Sacrifice 3. Execution Style 4. Defeat U 5. Mars 6. I Believe 7. Moses 8. Born Again Anarchist 9. Porrada 10. In the Meantime 11. Soulfly IV 12. Wings

Zane Ewton's review - he gave it a rating of 

With Soulfly’s fourth release, lead entity Max Cavalera continues to mix the sounds of world music with the thrash of guitars.  Surprises are around every corner; while some are effective others left me scratching my head.

Cavalera continues to work with new people on every Soulfy album, most notable Dave Ellefson (ex-Megadeth) plays bass on several tracks. 

The revolving door of musicians is a blessing and a curse.  New people bring new ideas, but a lack of cohesion really hurts the album.  The tribal drums of past efforts are overshadowed by flashes of Spanish guitar that at times is delicate.  The focus on bringing new sounds and instruments into the mix seems to have taken the focus away from the guitars and the vocals.

There are some good riffs throughout Prophecy, but it is nothing the casual thrash metal fan hasn’t heard before. Cavalera keeps the lyrics simple.  Unfortunately the lyrics grow boring quickly with most songs being nothing more than a refrain.

Most songs on Prophecy seem to drag, and you will find yourself skipping to the next track after the initial intrigue of the song has worn off. 

One standout track is “Moses”.  A reggae beat that breaks into thrash fury is interesting and the most memorable moment of the album.  In the liner notes Cavalera mentions his title of “The Bob Marley of Metal”.  The only difference between the two is Marley’s ability to take a simple lyric and let it shine. 

You can feel that Cavalera’s experiments are going to give way to something much bigger but Prophecy feels like a detour on his exodus into a better realm.

Hobo's Review - He gave it a Rating of 

In 1996, Max Cavalera left one of the most popular heavy metal bands in the world – Sepultura. Upon his exit from the gigantean metal juggernaut, Max threw himself headlong into his new musical project, featuring Roy Mayorga (drums), Jackson Bandeira (guitar) and former Sepultura roadie Marcello D. Rapp (bass). This band would become known as the ‘ultra-heavy’ (note: sarcasm) Soulfly.

The band formed with the best of intentions, releasing their tolerable self-titled debut album in 1998. But then something went horribly, horribly wrong. Max no longer looked to his death metal roots, but rather resorted to nu-metal type riffing and derivative lyrical content. 

After Soulfly’s two follow-up albums Primitive’(2000) and 3 (2002), Max had effectively isolated his massive Sepultura fan base.

For those of you who still pray for a rebirth of an inspired, invigorated Max – and I suspect there be close to none – I’m afraid your prayers are still to remain unanswered, as Prophecy is perhaps the single most horrible Soulfly album to date (well, in close enough contention with ‘3’ to be considered abysmal). How can one even dare compare the Max of Sepultura’s Arise with the abominable s***-heap that is Soulfly? 

Truly, one cannot.

Prophecy illuminates Max’s waning song-writing ability, clear for all to see. The album itself is littered with fillers (in fact, every single track after the first can be considered a filler), what should have been powerful and meaningful bursts of metal have been replaced with extensively pointless, frustrating and infuriating introductions (and outros). 

Take for instance the horrible chorus line of ‘Execution Style’: ‘Ready, aim, fire. Ready, aim, fire.’ (Repeat) Such pathetically uninspired and lifeless lyrics have become the defining features of a Soulfly album. ‘Mars’ sports a similarly stale chorus (‘I am Mars the god of war, you bow to me like you did before), complete with a THREE MINUTE AND FIFTEEN SECOND OUTRO. Excuse me? One hundred and ninety-five seconds of outro? This isn’t a goddam Tool album Max. 

Almost every track sounds like a dry and derivative echo of the past. For sake of example, ‘I Believe’ acts as a boring-as-bats*** statement of Max’s beliefs, which goes for around six minutes longer that it should. The hands-down, standout, worst track of the album however is the track ‘Moses’ – something of a spin-off of the 1998 album’s ‘Bumba’ gone horribly, horribly, horribly wrong. ‘Moses, Moses where are you? Please! Show up, tell the children what to do’ – followed up of course with another three-minute outro. How compelling! Awe-inspiring! 

Coming in a close second is ‘In The Meantime’, featuring some of the most appalling nu-metal riffing on the album, accompanied once more with a ninety second outro.  In ‘Born Again Anarchist’ we can easily identify piss-poor repetitive lyrics, with a hopelessly muffled guitar sound, cleverly blended with YET ANOTHER f***ing unnecessarily long, drawn out, pointless outro.

In fact, the only listenable song on the album is the single – which if of course listed as the first track on the album – because Jod knows, with songs this piss poor, no man – now matter how foolish – would purchase this album after a single run of ‘Moses’.

Max has gone from God to git. He even stoops as low as to use the ULTRAH KEWL abbreviation for ‘you’ in the title of ‘Defeat U’. 

This album should not be considered an album. It is a joke. A deeply saddening, disturbing and mournful prank played upon all us loyal metal fans by some macabre higher deity. Do not buy this album. Do not listen to this album. (Unless, of course, you’re of the Deftone-persuasion, then this kind of simplistic crock of nu-metal s***e would be right up your alley, asshats). 

Do yourself a favour and buy another copy of ‘Arise’ in protest.
 
 

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