Defenders Of The Faith, le forum Metal

I Heart Guitar: I hear you've also just recently finished a new CAVALERA CONSPIRACY CD?

Max: Yeah! It's very explosive. A lot of fast songs, short songs, like a minute and a half. So it's a little bit like "Reign In Blood" or MINOR THREAT. Igor is playing like crazy, really really hungry to play fast and aggressive, so he's in his best shape that I've seen him since the SEPULTURA days. It turned out to be a very explosive CD and it's going to surprise people. I think it makes the first album sound like pop music!

Altsounds.com: How do you feel about the constant question of whether the classic SEPULTURA lineup is going to reunite?

Max: It almost happened last year; I actually called Andreas [Kisser, SEPULTURA guitarist] myself and talked to him about it because I wanna do it, and I said, "We should do it, man. It's the time," and he said, "Let's do it." The next thing I know he has all these crazy demands, involving all these people that work for them and having him be the boss of everything, and I said, "That's not how it's gonna be if it's gonna happen," and he started talking a lot about money and shit like that so I backed off. It's not about the money, it's about the name of the band and showing people what we were about when we were together, so now I'm not so sure. I don't know if it's gonna happen, I'm not worried about it, I think once people hear the new CAVALERA CONSPIRACY album they are going to forget about the reunion, because it's really powerful stuff.

CAVALERA CONSPIRACY — the project featuring former SEPULTURA members Max (guitar, vocals) and Igor Cavalera (drums) — has set "Blunt Force Trauma" as the title of its second album, due in March via Roadrunner Records. The CD was once again tracked with Logan Mader (ex-MACHINE HEAD/SOULFLY guitarist), who co-produced the LP with Max. Logan also mixed the follow-up to the band's debut album, "Inflikted", which has sold less than 50,000 copies in the United States since its March 2008 release, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The brothers Cavalera co-founded SEPULTURA, the Brazilian metal band that redefined and established the genre outside of the U.S. and Europe. After Max exited the band, there was a rift between himself and his brother, one that was eventually repaired through the redemptive power of music. Some time had passed and Max and Igor were unable to resist the musical pull in their magnetic fields and their musical collaboration was renewed. The duo are back for round two with CAVALERA CONSPIRACY.

CAVALERA CONSPIRACY's lineup is filled out by guitarist Marc Rizzo, who plays with Max in SOULFLY, and bassist Johnny Chow.

"Blunt Force Trauma" track listing:

01. Warlord
02. Torture
03. Lynch Mob
04. Killing Inside
05. Thrasher
06. I Speak Hate
07. Target
08. Genghis Khan
09. Burn Waco
10. Rasputin
11. Blunt Force Trauma

An audio recording of CAVALERA CONSPIRACY performing a brand new song, "Warlord", during the band's October 11, 2010 appearance at the SWU Music and Arts Festival at the Maeda Farm in Itú (about 43.5 miles away from São Paulo), Brazil can be streamed in the YouTube clip below.

In an interview with Triple J's "The Racket", Max Cavalera stated about the sophomore album from CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, "Yeah, [we] just got done [in May], so I just got back from the studio. It's finished. We recorded 15 songs, 13 being originals for the album, and then we did a BLACK SABBATH cover, 'Electric Funeral', that's gonna come out on a Metal Hammer compilation in Europe. And we did a BLACK FLAG cover, a song called 'Six Pack'. We also had a collaboration with Roger [Miret] from AGNOSTIC FRONT — he sings on a song called 'Lynch Mob' that we did together in the studio in L.A.; he flew to L.A. to do this collaboration. I was really proud because, to me, Roger is like the godfather of New York hardcore; AGNOSTIC FRONT is one of the pioneer bands of the whole New York hardcore scene, so it was like recording with a legend of hardcore. The CAVALERA album is really intense; that's all I can say about it. It makes the first album sound like pop music."

Regarding the songwriting and recording process for the new CAVALERA CONSPIRACY album, Max said, "I wrote a lot of the stuff and I sent it to Brazil to [Igor] in the form of a CD — like four tracks of the riffs — so that he would be familiarized with the songs by the time I got to the studio. And then I brought another CD with me, which was, like, newer songs I had just got done [writing] for the album. And everything else we did in the studio together — me and him there on the spot. I told him the idea of making a very intense album with some songs being only a minute and a half, so it's a cross [between] MINOR THREAT and SLAYER and CAVALERA CONSPIRACY. So the idea was really cool — Igor really liked that — and from that point on, the album just grew and song after song, every day a new song came in. And I'm really happy with it. I think people are gonna be blown away when they hear it. I think it's a pretty cool album."