“My Favorite Album” is a weekly column in which we ask a musician exactly what the title suggests — to name their favorite album of all time. This week, it's Max Cavalera, formerly of Brazilian thrash titans Sepultura and frontman with Soulfly.

This is my favorite album, Outer Heaven's Realms of Eternal Decay.  What an incredible old-school perfection of death metal! Between blast beats and D-beats, this record hits like a napalm bomb and doesn’t let go from beginning to end. Great atmospheric passages and insanely awesome vocal patterns. It reminds me of the glory days of death metal but with the sound of NOW! It sounds fucking insane!

The music sounds like a horde of zombie mutants invading the Earth! Like some barbaric Viking tribe from northern pagan lands celebrating the massacre of humans while exploding lava flows from a volcanic background.

For best results, listen to this album really loud on headphones, late at night after the day has slipped past. It’s the fucking best.

My favorite track is “Bloodspire,” with the coolest guitar riff, in traditional death metal style. “Pulsating Swarm” makes this album incredible.

I could have picked an old classic but I decided to choose a new band with a new album. Pennsylvania’s Outer Heaven is the future of where death metal is going, alongside great bands like Gatecreeper, Genocide Pact, Homewrecker and Mutilation Rites. The production on the record is excellent thanks to the wizard hands of Arthur Rizk, whom I had the chance to work with on Cavalera Conspiracy’s Psychosis album. I love Arthur’s production and Outer Heaven is up there with the best. Celebrate the past by going into the future!

Soulfly play with Unearth, Incite, Sangre and Skinflint at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 1720.

Credit: Relapse Records

Credit: Relapse Records

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