Soulfly announces a new album due for an October 2018 release. This will be the band’s eleventh studio album, “Ritual.”
“Evil Empowered” served as the first single for this album. For this album, the band drew on the talent of many other artists. Featured on this album are vocalist Randy Blythe from Lamb oF God and bassist/vocalist Ross Dolan from Immolation. The cover art was done by Eliran Kantor.
Soulfly’s frontman and guitarist Max Cavalera commented: “I am really stoked to be working again with two of my favorite artists, Eliran Kantor and Marcelo Vasco! The Ritual artwork is very mystic and captures the vibe of the album perfectly. For this one, we really tried to retain the groove of early Soulfly as well as my love for the heavy, fast stuff I’m into like death and black metal.
Working with Josh Wilbur for Soulfly this time around has been amazing. He’s a huge fan and added a lot to the record. I would fight for the fast songs and he would always push me to add more groove. I think in the end we created a really cool mix of songs that covers a lot of ground in my career. Let the Ritual begin!”
On this project, Soulfly got to work with producer and mixer Josh Wilbur. Wilbur said of the collaboration: “Before I had ever recorded a record, in my formidable years, Max released the holy trinity that was (at least to me) ‘Chaos A.D.’, ‘Roots’, and ‘Soulfly 1’. I wanted to make a record that captured what I loved about those when I was growing up! Those records insipid me and introduced me to heavy metal.
Fast forward to now and I was given the opportunity to make the record I wanted as a fan! So I set up some mics, recorded some riffs, we banged on some galvanized metal, roto toms, djembes, and anything else we could get, then I told Max to ‘BRING DA SHIT’!”
Cavalera has carved his path in the music world being a part of many bands including Soulfly, Killer Be Killed, The Cavalera Conspiracy and Sepultra. Music has the been the cornerstone in his life. He believes that it has saved his life and his brother’s life. Cavalera said in an interview with Mxdwn speaking of his album, Archangel, “Soulfly put me back on the map again and I’m very thankful. That’s why I wrote my first song on the album, it’s my ‘Thank You’ to heavy metal for saving my life and to being proud to be a metal head.’”
The “Ritual” tracklist:
01 – “Ritual”
02 – “Dead Behind The Eyes” (feat. Randy Blythe)
03 – “The Summoning”
04 – “Evil Empowered”
05 – “Under Rapture” (feat. Ross Dolan)
06 – “Demonized”
07 – “Blood On The Street”
08 – “Bite The Bullet”
09 – “Feedback!”
10 – “Soulfly XI”