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Evile: Infected nations
13/11/09 || Smalley
Thrash fan I may be, I’m not getting too worked up over Evile’s second go-round here; while their Slayer-tastic debut “Enter the grave” was a lot of fun, things are already starting to go south (and not of heaven) for them on “Infected nations”. While “Enter” had a certain lightness of tone to it (what with the songs about Rambo & Jaws), and you knew Evile just wanted to make a loving tribute to thrash days of old (hell, it had a song called “Thrasher” on it!), here, the band’s trying to get by less on a sense of fun/nostalgia, and more as their own distinct bunch of thrashers, and the way they’re doing that isn’t very satisfying. Then again, if they had just turned out another nostalgia-heavy record like “Enter”, this band would’ve gotten boring pretty fucken fast, but then again, maybe something like that would’ve been better than what we have here…
Who the hell knows, let’s just deal with what we do have; you see, the way Evile’s trying to carve out more of their own thrash identity is by doing away with the very Slayer-riffic riffs of “Enter”, and focusing more on making very compact, chug-centric ones for “Infected”. While that helps Evile not sound like a fucken cover band anymore, these new riffs lacks a necessary punch/catchiness, with many of ‘em being too fucken tight and repetitive to get a good headbanging rhythm goin’ (and if you ain’t headbanging much to a thrash album, something is definitely wrong in Maybayarea). There are some looser, more enjoyable riffs here, ones you can do a pretty good headdance to, but as soon as one of those show up, Evile goes back to the standard chug-a-chug style all too soon, leaving too much of the enjoyability this album could’ve had in the dust. Yes, the drumming/solos are given excellent, extremely energetic performances here, and they help to negate the mundaneness of the chug riffs some, but only some.
In addition to that, what’s with the way frontman Matt Drake keeps
shouting here? It seems he’s trying to toughen up his delivery, a very
ill-advised move indeed, since his performance sounds very forced and
unnatural, all the way from the opening track through the next 7, adding
a tediousness this album could’ve done without. Speaking of tracks,
while album opener “Infected nation” is pretty decent (despite
the obnoxious shouting), and there are some good moments in the next
four songs, they mostly fail to impress in the end. However, once we get
to the second half, starting at “Devoid of thought”, things do
start to improve (not a whole lot, mind you, but I’ll still take what I
can get). “Devoid of thought” turns out to be more satisfying than any
of the previous songs, and it seems Evile is finally starting to loosen
up their songwriting as the record nears its end; though
“Metamorphosis” is another disappointment, dragging much more than it
should’ve, both “Time no more” and “Hundred wrathful deities” are
enjoyable, especially the latter, which turns out to be an epically
bad-ass instrumental (11 fucken minutes!), directly descended from the
likes of “The call of ktulu”.
So yes, “nations” did get better during its second half, and it did grow on me some after I tried paying less attention to the vocals, but I still didn’t have enough of that special, touchy-feely good mood after it was over to warrant something as high as a 7; in my head, I’ll always associate this album first with the obnoxious shouting, then with the middling chug riffs, and remember the various good moments throughout after that. I am still interested in checking out another Evile album, since this one was just a few ass hairs away from being at least decent, and the band has fortunately done nothing but improve on their instruments since “Enter”, but a future album is going to need a few fixer-uppers to truly succeed; just ease up with those riffs, and leave the constant shouting to the Arayas of this world, okay guys…?
- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Earache Records
- Website: www.evile.co.uk
- Band
- Matt Drake: vocals, guitars
- Ol Drake: guitars
- Mike Alexander: bass
- Ben Carter: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Infected Nation
- 02. Now Demolition
- 03. Nosophoros
- 04. Genocide
- 05. Plague To End All Plagues
- 06. Devoid Of Thought
- 07. Time No More
- 08. Metamorphosis
- 09. Hundred Wrathful Deities
