WHO THE HELL ARE

Soulfly

Noise from Brazil: They were the baddest, loudest, most demonic band in Brazil. Forget the Girl from Ipanema - this was the sound of an avenging army landing on the beach at Rio and opening fire on hapless holidaymakers. They were Sepultura, and verily they did rule the dominions of death metal from Panama to Patagonia. Their leader was a hairy behemoth named Max Cavalera who led his hordes of heavy metal fans down the path of righteous noise, whipping them into a frenzy of whiplashing hair and wild air guitar playing. Cavalera co-founded Sepultura in the early 1980s. They went on to become one of the world's biggest metal bands, influencing a whole generation of nascent death metallers. Their songs even ended up in the repertoire of Mexican classical guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, albeit in rather less ear-bleeding form.

Tempest fugit: Cavalera quit Sepultura in 1996. But instead of settling down to a sunny retirement in Rio, the singer/ guitarist immediately formed a new outfit, Soulfly, recruiting personnel from such metal bands as Medication, Slaughter and Mayhem. The band have released five albums, each recorded with a rotating crew of musicians, and each one marked by Cavalera's ferocious, take-no- prisoners approach to metal. Their latest album, Dark Ages, is their heaviest to date, fueled by personal upheaval in Cavalera's life and by the forces of nature behind major world disasters. "Nature on one hand is beautiful, peaceful," explains Cavalera. "On the other it's ruthless, as we see in tsunamis and things like that. Soulfly records are a bit like that."

Death mettle: When he formed Soulfly, Cavalera was coping with the unsolved murder of his stepson, Dana. During the making of Dark Ages in 2004, another tragedy struck: the deaths of Cavalera's grandson Moses and his friend, musician Dimebag Darrell. One track on the album, Stay Strong, features Cavalera's son Richie on vocals. "I'm really proud of him cos he sings his own lyrics and he's singing his heart out for Moses and for his brother Dana," says Cavalera. Other tracks are inspired by world music, Cavalera travelling to Turkey, Serbia, Russia, France and the US in search of inspiration and ideas. "I'm actually trying to create something new and trying to be a kind of scientist, like a metal scientist - fuse these things that normally would not fuse and see what happens when you combine them together."

Over ear: Soulfly will bring their ever- changing line-up to Dublin's Temple Bar Music Centre on January 28th. Don't bother shouting for Sepultura songs - everybody's ears will be too busy bleeding to hear you.