For Soulfly frontman and founding father of Brazilian metal heroes Sepultura (and the forgotten Nailbomb) Max Cavalera, music has always been about representing and meaning. If the nu-metal likes of Korn and One Minute Silence are sometimes a little overwrought with mall-rat anxiety, then you can always look to Max for sheer brutal pain and anger articulated on record or - even more violently - live.
'Primitive' draws on Max's political rage at colonial history and crimes of the conquistadors, a fury at the poverty and loss of identity of Brazil's native people first blasted out on Sepultura's classic 'Roots'. 'Terrorist' and 'Prophet' continue the rage. The respect that Cavalera enjoys from his peers is also in evidence here, with guest slots from Chino Moreno of the Deftones and Corey (No 8) Taylor of Slipknot. Possibly the weirdest collaborator though is Sean Lennon, who appears on and co-wrote 'Son Song'. Cavalera lost his stepson Dana in a gang-related murder and this tribute is a bizarrely affecting metal meditation on loss and grief, the anti-'Candle In The Wind'.
With his third-world perspective and polemical music, Cavalera has been described as the heavy metal Bob Marley. But there's also a contemporary revolutionary fire on 'Primitive'. The third-world
chaos continues.
Neil Thomson
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