So as for the band's music, it is classic tribal metal, with a hint of nu-metal. With a crap load of guest musicians on all of his albums the music never really flowed well together from album to album. But people agree on 2 things, first their debut Soulfly is basically Roots 2, seriously if you like Roots you will love Soulfly. And secondly, Dark Ages is a definite return to a classic Sepultura thrash sound. If this were a perfect world, Dark Ages would have come after Chaos A.D. and before Roots. It is more of a thrash album, than nu-metal. Some have even called it death metal, which I can see.
So onto the album. Of course it opens up with an instrumetal 40 second intro...when we look back at music at this time everyone is gonna ask...why so many intros? Even more so in this case, because adding the intro to Babylon would have worked perfectly...oh well. Babylon gives the listeners of what to expect throughout the album. Some killer guitar riffs, excellent drumming, and some soft interludes. The lead guitar plays a sort of middle eastern sounding riff throughout the song...very nice. The song for me that captures the whole aspect of tribal metal is I and I, keeping in pace with the blistering riffs of Babylon, I and I is a straight up thrash metal song with a head banging chorus if I ever heard one. The great thing about this song is the tribal breakdown, simply breath-taking, then after about 1 minute a classic guitar solo...I'm talking late 80's early 90's solo here. There seems to be a nod to Arise, with the song Arise Again, which seems to bash critics of Soulfly. It doesn't live up to the Sepultura song, but it is a welcomed surprise. Riotstarter and Frontline are solid songs as well, with Frontline using the f-word every 5 seconds it seems.
The one drawback to this album is that it is over an hour long and that might be a struggle for some. I found this album to be my favorite Soulfly album.
Next up...Iced Earth.
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