Sad news: The music world mourns the loss of Ray Manzarek (74), founding Member and keyboarder of The Doors, White Zombie drummer Phil Buerstatte (44) and Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder (63). R.I.P.!
German Hardrockers BERSERKER will donate 18.000€ to the Berlin cancer charity for children on May 25. November 2011 BERSERKER front man Schröder was diagnosed with cancer, now he is cancer-free. In 2012 the band collected money for this charity at their concerts and will also continue to do so in the future. Slayer´s Jeff Hanneman is dead: he passed away at about 11AM on May 2nd near his Southern California home because of liver failure due to an infection after a spider bite. R.I.P. Jeff!
The Siberian Jay music video "I´m Holding" featuring Mikko Sirén from Apocalyptica on drums - we reported about the videoshoot in our "1h with" Special - can be watched here: http://youtu.be/C-hSNurZVcs
In case you thought, that Cavalera Conspirace might have been a simple side-project, this record will prove you wrong. „Blunt Force Trauma“ described with a few words, compared to it´s predecessor „Inflikted“ from 2008 : It´s more brutal.
And apart from being more brutal, it appears to be more varied. „Blunt Force Trauma“ in general would describe the state you´re in after you survived a car crash or something similar, however, after listening to this CD you might as well find yourself in the same condition – minus the injuries of course. When comparing Cavalera Conspiracy to his other bands Soulfly, which is also on the way of getting better, I´d say, that CC currently has better stuff to offer.
Actually „Blunt Force Trauma“ seems to be quite a short record – 34 minutes for 11 songs, this gives an impression of how fast and brutal stuff will blast your ears.
„Warlord“ is the brutal start for this album and the first thing you recognize is, that the vocals really sound totally pissed and aggressive. Despite this, Guitarist Marc Rizzo comes up with nice melodies and soli just like this, accompanied by solid rhythm work on the drums by Mr. Igor Cavalera.
Some might say, that Soulfly and CC start to sound pretty much alike and the question, whether both bands have the right to exist. If you ask me, yes and when reading what Max says about song writing for both bands, that might explain the whole thing a bit: "I write riffs all of the time and when I'm writing I don't know if they're going to be for Soulfly or for Cavalera, to tell you the truth. I just write them and put them on a CD. But later I listen to the demos and I pick which song is going to go with each because I know by the way of the riff and the rhythm which ones will be better for Iggor to play. I know when I'm listening to which ones will go with Soulfly and which ones will go with Iggor."
So what can you actually complain about on this album? It´s missing some surprise moments, but taken as a whole, „Blunt Force Trauma“ is a surprise, so that left aside, it´s a pretty damn strong piece of music and probably what fans of the Cavalera brothers want to hear from them. A great portion of pure Metal in the reign of good old Sepultura stuff. That being said:
Enjoy your blunt force trauma (which for sure isn´t that blunt!), caused by straight-in-your-face riffs. This record is yet another proof, that it was surely one of the best decision´s in the lives of the Cavalera brothers to join forces again.
