Band:	Soulfly
Album:	Enslaved
Style:	Groove thrash metal
Release date:	March 13, 2012
Guest review by:	Cynic Metalhead

01. Resistance
02. World Scum [feat. Travis Ryan]
03. Intervention
04. Gladiator
05. Legions
06. American Steel
07. Redemption Of Man By God [feat. Dez Fafara]
08. Treachery
09. Plata O Plomo
10. Chains
11. Revengeance [feat. Richie, Zyon & Igor Cavalera]
12. Slave [deluxe edition bonus]
13. Bastards [deluxe edition bonus]
14. Soulfly VIII [deluxe edition bonus]

If you've noticed (takes a quick look of it), there's always heaps of guest musicians on their albums. No issues, Soulfly has a tradition to welcome guest musicians on board to make a record sounds amazing and spectacular. It has always been a win-win situation for them, right?

Wrong. They broke the fucking jinx.

Turns out it's the same garbage I just went through after listening to Omen. Well, my start of the review must sound like some sour ball or one angry kid who hates Soulfly for the rest of his life; I like to tell you, it's not. I cherish a good (or rather great) number of earlier Soulfly albums (Primitive, Dark Ages, or even 3) but this one wasn't impressive by no means. I'm talking about Soulfly's eights studio album, Enslaved.

Now, putting all the hype aside (Max bringing his kids into the band, Igor stepping up, line-up changes and more), if the music is just average, debilitated , watered-down typical groove metal crap, then for me, all hype and it's glorification is crap too.

The album starts with "Resistance", as sort of intro where Max levered up his shredding and Tony Campos (ex-Static-X) dropping some gorgy bass parts here and there. All while trying to make an appeal that Max and Co. brought a new drummer (David Kinkade - ex-live Malevolent Creation) aboard to give the fans another thrilling, or at least better than Omen record. This is followed by "World Scum", where Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitation) lends his death metal vocals. Unfortunately, they went rather unnoticed, as the amount of vibrating riffs Marc cranked up on the song, was a complete offbeat scene for Ryan.

Look, the only de-facto they chipped in is pedaling up the "heaviness", giving a huge transparency from previous records; albeit in Omen, I did find the heavy factor but the songs came out to be disorganized. So, I never expected that Enslaved would fall flat on the same scale as Omen, but sadly it was turning it on.

Not all are bad moments, I'd find a couple of songs tight and wonderfully delivered but it wasn't enough to cover the grace. "Legions" and "Intervention" come out to be good tracks with superb drumming and solid riffs as it reminded me of Sepultura's Arise era. Great stuff.

The record went further, carrying that "yeah, we are back on what we were suffering"-trip and then they dropped the "family package" with "Revengeance". A brillant song where his 3 sons participated (Richie on vocals, Zyon took drums, and Igor Jr. contributed in the riffs section) and Max also paid homage to his late stepson Dana Wells, who was murdered shortly before Max quit Sepultura). To be honest, the last three bonus tracks didn't contribute much to the album neither.

Overall, a very disappointing journey I went through with Enslaved, especially after the amount of generic musicianship they brought on Omen. At least you would think that in a span of two years, they really would have thought what to do with their next album.

For me, again, Omen and Enslaved are on the same scale and I surely prefer to ignore this CD on music store racks. Sigh.