Soulfly have returned once again with their sixth outing, appropriately titled 'Conquer'. Max and co. have kicked the aggression levels back up to 10 with this one, which is evident from the beginning of the album. The thrash attack that Max was know for with Sepultura, made it's way back into the material on Soulfly's last release, 'Dark Ages', but even that pales in comparison to what you'll find on 'Conquer'.
'Blood Fire War Hate" is pretty much an all out thrasher, with moments of straight staccato headbanging rhythms. Lyrically, it's all sociopolitical...and while that's nothing new coming from Max, it's all relative to what's currently affecting the world. The guest vocal appearance from Morbid Angel's David Vincent is at times hard to distinguish, as he sounds nothing like he did years ago with Morbid Angel. But He does a decent trade off with Max throughout the song, and even closes out the track with the entire last verse before it fades out.
"Unleash" comes in swinging with a wicked Pantera-esque rhythm and a healthy dose of tribal percussion, and a guest vocal appearance from one of Metal's best new screamers, Throwdown's Dave Peters. Much like David Vincent, Dave Peters does well with the vocal trade off for each verse with Max, and enhances the chorus when their screams are layered. With as brutal as the song is, the chorus is extremely catchy and will have you screaming it in your head consistently, long after you've finished listening to the album. "Paranoia" on the other hand, has more of a driving rhythm to get you going, but breaks into a mean chugging rhythm during the chorus, with the repetitive refrain "PARANOIA!", that you can't help but scream along to while banging your head to the rhythm.
Further into the album, songs like "Rough" come in with more of a raw feel to them, almost in the vein of Max's Nailbomb project, only with better overall production. But the underlying punk feel is there. "Fall Of The Sycophants" is very thrash oriented ala Beneath The Remains, but it gets a little proggy midway through the song with some great guitarwork courtesy of Marc Rizzo. And it just wouldn't be a Soulfly record without the now trademark Soulfly Instrumental. Much like the others, "Soulfly VI" is an extremely relaxing song, and a perfect way to bring this rager of an album to a close (unless of course, you have the Special Edition).
