Sepultura "Roots" vs. Sepultura "Against" vs. Soulfly "Soulfly"

Ok. I have been listening to this albums recently. Although I know a lot of poeple that consider the Sepultura after Derrick Green joined on vocals, some sort of "It all went downhill from there" thing. Plus they are the 3 albums that marked that point from where they were 2 different bands now.

I have to completely disagree. Let's take a good look at these 3 albums. So this is my analysis about why Against is a way better album than both Roots and Soulfly.




Roots, is the last Sepultura release featuring Max Cavalera on vocals.


Against, is the first Sepultura release featuring Derrick Green on vocals.


Soulfly (also called self-titled) is the first Soulfly release from Max Cavalera's band after leaving Sepultura.

The thing is simply this. When you listen to Either Roots or Soulfly (2 albums I really love, don't get me wrong), you sometimes find that you want to skip through certain parts. For example in Roots, I still don't know anyone that listens to that song "Lookaway", which features dudes from Korn. What the fuck?! Same thing in Soulfly, even though it's a good idea, but really bad execution is that song "Soulfly", which they try to keep putting in every release just like adding a Roman numeral after. At the same time, Max just has way too many guest vocalists. Including Fred Dust. That's really low, although I really like his part. It's like a guilty pleasure.

In Roots another thing that you find is a lot of those instrumentals, that later Max started using a lot with Soulfly. There's two songs that I think would be so much better if they didn't add some stupid "tribal" bridge. Like the songs Ambush, also Endangered Species. Those fucking songs are fucking amazing. But then you have like a 2 minute "tribal" interlude in between that makes you want to kill the band because they managed to ruin some of the best riffs they had ever done with some stupid "tribal" shit.

Anyway. I don't know if someone agrees, but I see Soulfly pretty much as the continuation of what Max wanted Sepultura to go.

Now. I am going to talk about Against.

Against, pretty much starts with a fucking sick drum intro, the only way Igor Cavalera can do it. Then it jumps right into the title track of the album, which is pretty much a hardcore punk song. And I love that. To be honest I had been waiting all that time for Sepultura to finally show their hardcore punk background. You can hear some little hints in Chaos A.D.'s "Biotech Is Godzilla" but it's a shorter song. The next song "Choke just pretty much unleashes Derrick's vocals, who by the way is one of my favorite singers in hardcore/metal/punk.

This album, obviously had to stay in the "vein" of what Roots was because of the obvious change in the band, so they needed to prove they could continue doing that. At least that's what I think. The only difference between this album and the other two mentioned earlier, is that this album is way more thought. You can see that in Soulfly it's pretty much like trying to do something as fast as possible because Max found out that Sepultura had already a new singer. That's why there are some members in the recording that I don't think ever played a live show.

Against tends to flow way better, and better songwriting, and better lyrics. Pretty much they did what they were going to do, instead of trying to come up with stuff in the last minute. But I am not gonna say, that I hate the other two albums, because I don't. I love them. They are just not as good as Against.

One thing. If you like Soulfly, and Roots. Well, the only thing I recommend to do is listen to Against. But listen to them as another band. Don't think of them as Sepultura. Then you will understand what I am saying.