Kingcrimsonprog Soulfly’s fifth studio album Dark Ages caused the public to reassess its negative views on Soulfly when it was released back in 2005, and begin to take the band seriously as an actual band and not just a side project.

The music is harder, faster and darker than previous Soulfly albums had been and sheds much of the bouncy fun riffs in favour of harsh thrash metal pounding and high speeds.

Lyrics on the album and interviews the band gave around the time spoke of the album’s connection to Sepultura’s Arise album in a (cynical?) attempt to draw in the very fans who’d been dismissing Soulfly all this time.

The album is much more thrash centric, with a few punky sections a few of the bouncy sections of old but with much less of the tribal jam sections that were on other albums for the last minute or so of most songs. It may actually have been a mistake however, as the album is kind of dull and the only variety (such as the dance influenced Riot Starter) is out of place. For all its attempts to draw a thrash audience, it isn’t a very successful thrash record and beyond that it is only a good Soulfly record, but uneven with a bit of what seems like filler and some experiments which just don’t work.

The album isn’t all bad however, highlights include the pounding ‘Arise Again,’ which is good despite its questionable motives and the unusual ‘Innerspirit,’ which mixes the band’s previous sound of clean bits and tribal sounds with a very dark style reminiscent of Machine Head’s The More Things Change album.

In conclusion; Dark Ages may be a lot of people’s favourite Soulfly album historically, or because of the hype around Max’s supposed return to thrash, but as with all Soulfly albums the first few songs are brilliant but the album as a whole doesn’t fully live up to the standard they set.