MAX CAVALERA Says New SOULFLY Album Will Be 'An Unpredictable Kind Of Record'

In a brand new interview with Metal Wani, Max Cavalera spoke about his plans for SOULFLY's follow-up to 2015's "Archangel" album, tentatively due next summer via Nuclear Blast.

"I'm writing right now," he said. "When I was home before [the 'Max & Iggor Cavalera Return To Roots' European tour], I was writing a lot of riffs. So I'm just collecting riffs right now. This is the stage where… It's very similar to [what] I do on every record — I normally just stack riffs, and those riffs will eventually turn into songs."

According to Max, the "cool" thing about the next SOULFLY album will be that it will "a bit like a return to some of the tribal sounds" of the bands's early material. "Some of the songs are more kind of like 'Prophecy', like [the first SOULFLY album] kind of vibe, which I think is really cool, and a lot of people, I think, are gonna be happy with that," he said. "So we're gonna have that heavy sound with percussion on top of it. It's gonna be great. And the other part of it is a continuation of the heavy stuff that I love, even some elements of different extreme music I listen to, like black metal and death metal and thrash metal and stuff like that that I always love and I have fun doing."

Max said that he was "very inspired" by the song "Judas Pariah" on the latest CAVALERA CONSPIRACY album, "Psychosis". CAVALERA CONSPIRACY features Max and his brother, former SEPULTURA drummer Igor Cavalera. "I think it was one of my favorite songs [on the latest CAVALERA disc] — and I wanna make more songs like this, so I'm probably gonna go have a couple of songs on the SOULFLY [album] that will be kind of like that, kind of black metal style together with the tribal," Max said. "I think it's cool. I think it's gonna be an unpredictable kind of record."

Asked why he felt now was the right time to go back to the more tribal-sounding direction of the early SOULFLY albums, Max said: "I think we can expand that feeling more, because I don't think it's been fully explored yet — I think we can do more with it. It's kind of like similar to what we did on 'Psychosis', [where we took] this death metal/thrash metal formula and we went in and picked it up and did it again with the sound of right now. And I think it's cool to look at music… I like thinking of music like that — as something that you can approach older stuff and bring it to the now and make something cool out of it. And everything else is whatever happens in the studio. I have great musicians like Marc Rizzo. My son Zyon is gonna be great on this record. He's become an amazing drummer; on [SOULFLY's] NAILBOMB tour, he did amazing. It's so fun to watch him play live — so much energy. And we have Mike Leon playing bass — he's a great bass player. So it's a very good SOULFLY lineup."

SOULFLY's new album will be recorded in January with producer Josh Wilbur, who has previously worked with LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA and ALL THAT REMAINS, among others.

Max recently told the "No Limits Music Show" that SOULFLY's upcoming disc will be "deeply tribal, very spiritual. There's a concept. I cannot tell you much about it, 'cause it's kind of a surprise," he said. "But there is a concept behind the record, and I have not done a record with a concept like this since [SEPULTURA's] 'Roots'. So this one has got the same kind of feeling that 'Roots' has."

Max and Igor have spent the last year and a half celebrating the twentieth anniversary of "Roots" by performing the LP in its entirety all over the world.

"Psychosis" came out on November 17 via Napalm Records.