IS OMEN SOULFLY’S BEST ALBUM YET?

Like a lot of projects that are the project after the project that made someone famous (got all that?), Soulfly seems to inspire a lot of heated debates. (Then again, this is metal, where the question “What’s for lunch?” seems to inspire a lot of heated debates.) I never liked Soulfly as much as a certain trio of Sepultura albums, but I never thought they were bad, either; Max Cavalera clearly wanted to follow the same creative path he started out on with Roots, and being one of three people in the world who doesn’t think that Roots was a brilliant game-changer, Soulfly just hasn’t been the super-awesome experience I’d like it to be.

But I did like 2005’s Dark Ages quite a bit; when I saw Soulfly play at Download in ’06, they put on a really fun show; and I think that their latest, Omen – which is now streaming in full – is the best album they’ve ever made. It is, by and large, far less nu-metally and considerably more old-Sepultura-ish than Soulfly has been in the past. Hell, a lot of the songs on the release are Sepulturic enough that they could be Cavalera Conspiracy songs. (Because let’s be real – the Sepultura we grew up with and love is alive in well, they just ain’t called “Sepultura” anymore.)  And since the new CC album ain’t comin’ out ’til 2011, well, Omen is not at all a bad way to tide yourself over.

Stream Omen here, then rage on in the comments section.

-AR