When the brothers Cavalera reunited under the Cavalera Conspiracy name a few years back, some fans held out hope that this would represent a return to the Sepultura glory of old. While Inflikted and Blunt Force Trauma offered proof that Max and Igor are better together than separated, neither album exactly burned down the house. As such, the reunion failed to make waves even remotely comparable with the tsunamis of their original run together.
With Pandemonium, it is clear that Cavalera Conspiracy will continue to be an active outlet for the brothers, even as Max keeps Soulfly going. While it was originally curious for him to not just merge the bands – or fight to get the old Sepultura name back – this third album continues to separate Cavalera Conspiracy from Soulfly. It also manages to be pretty goshdern listenable.
The most immediately notable thing about Pandemonium is that it has a certain unifying character about it that so many other recent Cavalera efforts can’t claim. With a serious touch of industrial precision, it reaches back a bit to Max’s past with Nailbomb, but there is also a bit of filth covering everything, resulting in a kind of caustic, layered production. This allows for equal parts punch and heft as the album brutally thrashes its way along with largely simple, repetitious riffs that are occasionally splashed with melody, and quite often drenched in Marc Rizzo’s excellent lead work.
After a while, it undoubtedly will all start blending together to most ears, but nothing is actually bad (try to say that about a Soulfly or “Sepultura” disc…), and the album isn’t long enough for this to actually be a problem. Plus, there are enough truly memorable moments to keep it glued. Igor’s relentless snare and the busy thrash capping off “Bonzai Kamikazee,” the great gallops driving the chorus of “Cramunhão,” and Rizzo’s spacy, mood-shifting leads are all reasons to go back. Mostly, it just goes, possessing enough momentum to get even the most serious of doubters to give it a chance.
But not all of the doubters. For some, this still comes with a couple pretty big caveats. First, this is not going to bring back the feeling you had when you first heard Beneath the Remains, or even Chaos A.D. It offers neither the same music nor of the same stratospheric quality. It also probably goes without saying that this can get kiiiiiiiiinda dumb from time to time. But lyrical subtlety has never been one of Max Cavalera’s finer artistic merits, so this should come as no surprise, and screaming along to his mispronunciations is as fun now as it was 20-plus years ago. Plus, his vocals are given a nice variety in the production, with everything from the Max you know (“Not Losing the Edge”) to a deep, fuzzed death growl (opener “Babylonian Pandemonium”).
Is it great? No, but it’s a fun, blistering blast, and very likely the best album either brother has been involved in since Roots, and it’s closer to that oft-misunderstood gem than the clunkers that followed it. In the end, Pandemonium still won’t put Max and Igor back up among the kings of metal, but it ought to get more than a few people at least talking about Cavalera Conspiracy as a legit vehicle for their once-worshiped talents, and that is an accomplishment in its own right.
