The new Soulfly album is getting closer – new details revealed by Max Cavalera

Frontman Max Cavalera of Soulfly discussed his intentions for the band’s follow-up to 2022’s “Totem” album in a recent interview with MetalUnderground.com.

We’re working on the new record right now. It’s going good, man. We’re taking our time to do it right. We are in the process of finishing the recordings right now, and then we’re gonna start getting stuff mixed and finding the songs that are gonna go on all the socials, Spotify and all that jive. But, yeah, I’m very proud of the record.

He also spoke about the musical direction of the record.

The record, it’s cool. It feels to me [like it] has the adventurous spirit of the first record. Sonically, it’s pretty different from the first record — it’s more intricate and maybe even heavier, heavier grooves. But in terms of spirit and attitude, it’s similar to the first record, which I think is cool that I got to figure out a way to put my mind back at that time and what made me create that record and use it again on a new record. It’s pretty fun. It’s kind of hard to do, but I think it was an exciting thing to tackle. It was kind of, like, ‘Let’s try to do this. Let’s see if you can use your first album as somehow some kind of inspiration for your thirteenth record. [Laughs] And that was great, man. I love that. I love that kind of vibe that the record has. That’s the cool thing about this record. It’s kind of, in a way, a return to what me and fans of Soulfly fell in love with Soulfly for. And then throughout the years, many of the other records had a lot of different vibes in it. Some of them went more thrashy with stuff like ‘Dark Ages’, ‘Omen’, ‘Conquer’. So, to me, making a record that sonically is inspired by the first thing that you did as a band, it was a challenge — there’s a challenge in that — ’cause it’s easier said than done. Because I don’t wanna just copy that first record either. There’s no point in doing that. I’m just using it as inspiration. It’s really just full on for metal inspiration. The songs, they’re gonna have their own personality and their own vibe. But, yeah, it’s coming out quite interesting. I’m excited to hear what the fans are gonna think about this one.

At least we have a sort of idea for a timeline of a release!

Right now I think we’re looking at October. That’s they’re talking about. And we do have a European tour that starts in June. It goes from June to late July. We are gonna be playing one or two songs of the new record on that tour, which I think is great. Anytime I had a chance to do that, it’s been great. I remember playing ‘Primitive’ on the first record tour, because I wrote ‘Primitive’ at the same time I wrote the first Soulfly record. I just couldn’t fit in. There was too many songs, and I was, like, ‘All right. Fuck it. I don’t need another song on this record.’ But then we went on tour, and I got a chance to play the song ‘Primitive’ live before the ‘Primitive’ record came out, so that people got a taste of the second record coming up. So it’s kind of similar kind of thing — people get a taste of this album a little bit before. Especially this day and age with the Internet, people gonna get it on YouTube, they’re gonna watch it, and they’re gonna feel the record before October, at least.