GO AHEAD AND DIE
GO AHEAD AND DIE “Unhealthy Mechanisms”
By Dr. Abner Mality
Metal has been around long enough now that father-and-son bands are not that unusual. Think of Phil Campbell and his boys, Udo and his son Sven, SAXON’s Biff and son Seb. Here we have the second onslaught from Max Cavalera and his progeny Igor Amadeus (not to be confused with two-G’s Iggor, his brother). These guys have got their style pretty much locked in for GO AHEAD AND DIE...this is not far from their self-titled debut, only it seems even more raw and angry...befitting the state of the world today.
One thing’s for certain, these guys sure don’t overthink what they are doing. This is dirty, ugly, punk-influenced thrash metal with some industrial overtones. Except for pre-”Chaos A.D.” SEPULTURA, Max has always kept things simple, basic and rage-filled. But where a lot of SOULFLY is monotonous groove and CAVALERA is just reliving the past, GO AHEAD AND DIE somehow has real rage and fury in it. The band reminds me a lot of Max’s old project NAILBOMB, only a bit more punk and a bit less industrial. And as angry as Max sounds here, it’s Igor Amadeus who really raises hell with his wrenching screams. Bile that caustic can’t be faked.
Top tracks for me would be the neck-snappingly catchy punk metal of “Drug-O-Cop”, the brutal “No Easy Way Out” and the somewhat slower and grinding “Chasm”, which really has that NAILBOMB feel. By the end of the album, it starts to get a bit samey and predictable, but the album is compact enough that you don’t get bored with it. It’s just simple, angry music…not death metal, but not terribly far off either. One of the best things Max has been involved with.