If you’re skulking around this site and the names Ig(g)or and Max Cavalera don’t hold at least a smidgen of importance to you, then you should probably just quietly step away. Actually, why not do everyone a favour, yourself included, and get the hell out! Even if you’re of the opinion that everything the Cavalera brothers have had their hands in post-Morbid Visions is 150%, sell-out bullshit, the importance of Igor Graziano and Massimilano Antonio cannot be understated.
They exposed the world to not only the vibrancy of the Brazilian metal scene, but shined a light on a different methodology of existence and degree of dedication while bestowing upon us a handful of inarguable classics (whether you like them or not). If you still can’t understand the flowchart from Beneath the Remains, Arise and Nailbomb’s Point Blank to Soulfly and Killer Be Killed, fine, but the Brothers Cavalera are bonafide legends, deserved of respect and whenever they pair up the output should be given a cursory look-see at the very least.
Joined by Soulfly guitarist Marc Rizzo (with Converge bassist Nate Newton drafted into the ranks last year), the previous two long playing results of this sibling-centered collaboration, 2008’s Inflikted and Blunt Force Trauma three years later, were as unspectacular as you might expect from two dudes living in different countries and still feeling each other out after years apart as they Frankenstein-ed albums together piece-by-piece. Ask any professional athlete; no matter how good or naturally gifted you are, a long layoff fucks with everything, especially timing, mental sharpness and game-shape readiness. That’s why training camp, a pre-season schedule and the minor leagues exist. Sure, Max and Rizzo may have Soulfly as their proverbial day gig, but that’s a decidedly tamer beast and Iggy is hardly touching metal with a ten foot pole these days.
The first thing you’ll notice about Pandemonium – aside from Max’s ongoing penchant for selecting the most generic, metal-sounding words and phrases as album titles – is how much fiercer it sounds. As if to summon the spirit of Point Blank (an album that collector nerds and divorce lawyers alike will have to pry from my cold, dead hands), this baby leans towards the irascibly heavier side of things where the early death/thrash of Sepultura is pin-pricked by proto-grind tempos and aggressive shades of blackened industrial with Rizzo’s leads and harmonies offering melodic flavouring and acting like oases of consonance amid a landscape of tempestuous chromatic dissonance.
Fuck, it warms the heart to hear riffs storming out of the gates approximating Hell Awaits-era Slayer knocking boots with Soul of a New Machine-era Fear Factory driven by drum pummelling straight from the heart of 90s Tampa. The velocity which tracks like “Insurrection” and “Bonzai Kamikazee” are presented at is definitely surprising, the fiery bleakness of their riffing exciting and Max is spouting off with more death growling than ever. There are a couple of chugging bangers in there as well in the form of “Not Losing the Edge” and “Cramunhao” that straddle the worlds of vintage Sepultura and someone jumping da fuk up, somewhere, though the Egyptian scales and fiery leads of the latter make the three chord shuffle a much more interesting experience.
Where Pandemonium fails is in its dearth of catchiness. The recording falls on the low-fi end of the quality spectrum, which leads one to believe that much of this was slung together on the fly during those brief moments in which Arizona resident, Max was able to meet face-to-face with London-resident Iggor and quickly crank out whatever noise they could manage in their time together. There’s a definite lock-load-and-fire spontaneity at work, but sometimes what sounds awesome during a mad rush doesn’t sound as awesome later on down the line, assuming any recollect in the first place. Think of how many albums you own that have lost their lustre over the years (days?) and how deep cuts might as well not even exist. That’s exactly the category Pandemonium is speeding towards. Yes, songs like “Deus Ex Machina,” “Babylonian Pandemonium,” and “I, Barbarian” will pin your ears to the wall upon first listen, but there’s little for the listener to hang his or her hat in the long run. I, like you, can still hum “Dead Embryonic Cells,” “24 Hour Bullshit” or “Refuse/Resist” to this day. Very few of us will be able to say similarly about Pandemonium 20 days from now, let alone 20 years.
6.5/10
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQYEZO-Dr-A&w=560&h=315]
