SOULFLY have unveiled a brand-new track titled “Favela Dystopia” during their ongoing European tour. The song made its live debut on July 8 at Maimunarnika in Sofia, Bulgaria, and was performed again just two nights later on July 10 at Dorćol Platz in Belgrade, Serbia.
Fan-filmed footage of the Belgrade performance has surfaced online, giving fans a first listen to the crushing new material that frontman Max Cavalera and company are currently working on. Check it out below.
The track is expected to appear on SOULFLY‘s forthcoming album, which will serve as the follow-up to their 2022 release, Totem.
Earlier this year, SOULFLY brought in Chase Bryant of WARBRINGER to handle bass duties for their summer trek across Europe. The tour kicked off on June 7 at the South Of Heaven festival in Maastricht, Netherlands, and has seen the band perform at numerous festivals and club venues across the continent.
Max previously discussed plans for new album this past May in an interview with MetalUnderground.com.
“We’re working on the new record right now,” Max said at the time. “It’s going good, man. We’re taking our time to do it right. We are in the process of finishing the recordings right now, and then we’re gonna start getting stuff mixed and finding the songs that are gonna go on all the socials, Spotify and all that jive. But, yeah, I’m very proud of the record.”
As for the musical path SOULFLY is taking with their new material, Cavalera said: “The record, it’s cool. It feels to me [like it] has the adventurous spirit of the first record [1998’s Soulfly]. Sonically, it’s pretty different from the first record — it’s more intricate and maybe even heavier, heavier grooves. But in terms of spirit and attitude, it’s similar to the first record, which I think is cool that I got to figure out a way to put my mind back at that time and what made me create that record and use it again on a new record. It’s pretty fun. It’s kind of hard to do, but I think it was an exciting thing to tackle. It was kind of, like, ‘Let’s try to do this. Let’s see if you can use your first album as somehow some kind of inspiration for your thirteenth record. [Laughs] And that was great, man. I love that. I love that kind of vibe that the record has.”
“That’s the cool thing about this record. It’s kind of, in a way, a return to what me and fans of SOULFLY fell in love with SOULFLY for,” he continued. “And then throughout the years, many of the other records had a lot of different vibes in it. Some of them went more thrashy with stuff like Dark Ages [2005], Omen [2010], Conquer [2008]. So, to me, making a record that sonically is inspired by the first thing that you did as a band, it was a challenge — there’s a challenge in that — ’cause it’s easier said than done. Because I don’t wanna just copy that first record either. There’s no point in doing that. I’m just using it as inspiration. It’s really just full on for metal inspiration. The songs [themselves], they’re gonna have their own personality and their own vibe. But, yeah, it’s coming out quite interesting. I’m excited to hear what the fans are gonna think about this one.”
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