Perhaps the noticeable increase in crossover thrash coming out this year is intended to fill the void left by bands like Power Trip and Slayer. Rather than jump on this bandwagon, British thrashers Evile are slowing things down on The Unknown (Napalm Records) to focus on songwriting.
This is admirable considering they are six albums deep into their career. I am a strong proponent of songs over a sound, since with the right gear and producer anyone can achieve a sound, but writing a song relies on drawing from what is inside, separating musicians from artists.
Even after numerous line-up changes that finds Ol Drake behind the microphone, the band seems pretty confident in who they are, and who they are goes back to their humble beginnings as a Metallica tribute band. They stay close to their roots in this regard, though where most bands influenced by Metallica worship the first three albums, this is where Evile parts ways with the competition as the mid-tempo chug buffets they crank out owe more to The Black Album than Master of Puppets.
That said, the album’s best moments come when they lean away from this influence to incorporate things like gang vocals to create bigger choruses that also convey the band is now more comfortable in their own skin musically. Sure, Ol Drake’s vocals still hold some of the Hetfield roar. but it becomes less glaring.
When they veer into something closer to a power ballad, Drake takes the opportunity to step from the shadows of his influences and showcase the nuances of his voice. The emphasis on more accessible songwriting is placed on the front end of the album as midway into The Unknown they step on the gas and begin to thrash again with songs like ‘Sleepless Eyes’. Their pulse quickens as tempos accelerate to a rabid rate on ‘Out of Sight”. With both thrash and punk, the need for speed can cause a song to feel slightly rushed, which is not evident until contrasted by the more deliberate groove of ‘At Mirror’s Speech’.
As songwriters, Evile have a knack for hammering you with the palm-muted chugs for just enough for the forceful vocals to lock in and create a churning sonic machine. Have we heard similar in the late eighties and early nineties? Sure, but the same can be said of Power Trip, and what works for both bands is rather than trying to dial everything back to the days of Metal Blade Records, they recapture the nostalgia of the era while doing their own thing.
One of the album’s best examples of this is ‘Beginning of the End’, which lands on a grooving stomp that brings a more effective balance of tempos while giving the vocals room to breathe.
Overall, The Unknown allows Evile to emerge as who they want to be after the dust settles from the line-up changes that plagued them earlier in their career. There might not be the punk-flavored piss-and-vinegar attitude of the crossover bands out there, but an honest dedication to song-writing prevails more often than not here,
Buy the album here:
https://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/evile
8 / 10
WIL CIFER