Evile - Skull
Another year, another Evile album, another review from the Dingram. Whenever these boys release a new album I always end up acting like a six year old child at Christmas time and I've never been disappointed by the final product they've put out. While Enter the Grave comes across as slightly hilarious nowadays due to how utterly 'thrash' it is, it was still an extremely well-written album and seems to be the one that most Evile fans point their fingers at when asked which album they enjoyed the most. Infected Nations alienated a fair few fans of the first album, which baffled me since the only excuses I got from such people seemed to boil down to "it doesn't sound like bog-standard rehashed Exodus clonery" which by all accounts, is a fucking stupid way to approach Infected Nations. It was a gargantuan leap forward in production, songwriting and performance with some delicious atmosphere, technicality and progressive elements that pretty much solidifies it as my favourite Evile release of all time because I'm not a close-minded knuckle-dragging twat who dislikes an album just because there's a lack of open-E chugging in every verse or lyrics that aren't about toxic-zombie beer-blood-sharks-of-nuclear-war every five seconds in case I can't cum to it. And when Five Serpents' Teeth was released two years ago, despite receiving some mixed response from many (reviews and fan feedback were RIFE with Metallica comparisons) it came across as a happy halfway point between the straightforward thrashing of the band's debut and the tasty advanced wizardry of their sophomore effort. Since each Evile album has sounded so different from the previous one and could generally be put somewhere on a graph between ETG and IN in terms of it's approach or sound, my anticipation for Skull was the same as ever until frontman Matt Drake stated that the band would be adopting a sound slightly closer to their debut - and I proceeded to pull out my own teeth upon hearing this in the hopes that the pain would distract me from my stupid excitement. But the main question here still remains... how does Skull hold up?
Evile managed to get their own sound rather early on in their career - by their second album in fact, something that can take a lot of bands quite a few releases to obtain - which is great for them really. It ensured that they'd have an identity in an ocean of new thrash bands who for the most part, all sounded the goddamn same and didn't really offer anything to fans. However managing to get an identifiable sound so early on in a career bears the risk of early stagnation, which Evile haven't had a problem with since they've gone out of their way to make each album considerably different from the previous one. But Skull seems to be the album that's finally caught up to them with their overdraft slips screaming "Guys! Guys! You forgot to pay these in!" and it does so... well, quite blatantly. By no means is Skull a bad album - far from it - but it seems that Evile's sound has reached the point where I'm begging for them to try something else instead of finding a happy medium between their two best albums. Their performance is the best yet, but the composition just reeks of an old wooly hat that hasn't been washed since 2009 yet has still been worn every day since by the greasy sheepish thrash fans that this album seems to be aimed at.
There seems to be a reoccuring idea of fast thrash riffing here that, despite being frenzied and speedy, lacks any of the catchiness of previous albums and is repeated so wearily often and with each repetition being so unbearably similar-sounding that it almost becomes the album's gimmick - like a running joke that the band put in to see how many people would notice. That's not to say that the whole record is made up of these riffs entirely and there are instances when it's quite effective, but a majority of reprises feel forced with a let's-put-it-in-for-the-hell-of-thrashiness vibe eminating from the offending tracks. And the repetition isn't strictly limited to these riffs either - if there's one thing that Evile have managed to balance effectively, it's the length of their songs and with Skull the band just haven't managed to find that balance where it's needed. Some sections are repeated too many times or in some instances just don't feel like they should be present in the first place, with a lot of tried-and-tested-to-the-point-of-nausea thrash meal arrangements being adopted and the occasional excruciatingly long intro or mid section ruining the pace of some otherwise decent tracks here. Matt Drake's vocal patterns seem to be extraordinarily similar throughout the whole record as well, and while his melodies are fantastic (more on those later) he seems to have a habit of trying to cram a little too much into a particular pattern in places and it makes the whole thing sound kind of... disjointed, or rushed. Track lengths, despite adding up to 45 minutes or so of runtime (which is about right for an album) simply cannot be justified with this level of monotony - padding tracks out with constant and needless repetition, be it intentional or unintentional, just comes across as poor songwriting for me. A majority of the tracks here are over four minutes with a fair few breaching six and only one under four which is simply too long when only a small handful of the songs present have legitimate excuse for their length.
This aside, Skull does have a lot of redeeming qualities too. The band have at least made an effort to try something a little bit different here and there, with What You Become being the main subject here. It's a nice mid paced, groove laden track that despite falling victim to the aforementioned repetition bug really flows quite nicely and exhibits the band's ability to write music that isn't just speed for speeds sake. Tomb is an astonishing track with plenty of clean guitars leading into some crunchy and eerie riffing, and Head of the Demon is quite possibly the best track on the album sounding like the Evile that everyone knows and loves - catchiness, heaviness, excellent atmosphere and some slight death metal tinges to it's sound in places. The iTunes bonus track A Sinister Call is actually really, really good and fits far better as the album closer than New Truths, Old Lies does which is rather frustrating to say the least so I'd highly recommend picking up the iTunes version if possible. A lot of the tracks here do have some great riffing tucked away admist the needlessly-frenzied-and-fast-for-repetition's-sake stuff that plagues the album throughout, and Matt Drake definitely helps the album with some his vocal melodies. For the most part they're during the chorus, but Head of the Demon and Tomb manage to help carry the entire songs instead of just putting on the anthemic chorus suit. The opening track Underworld is another track that's very well constructed despite having a few of those annoying fast riffs and certainly gets the album off to a good start, it's just a shame that a majority of what follows is surrounded by ideas that really just don't seem to fit very well, with a couple of songs - Outsider in particular - just coming across as rather stale and kind of... poorly written musically. It's not that Evile didn't make the effort, but they just didn't quite manage to get it right this time.
I really, REALLY wanted to love Skull. I've been so satisfied by Evile's previous work and I was so excited for Skull, but I just can't like it as much as I want to. It's fallen into the same trap as Sodom's latest album - it tries to 'go back to the roots' and be faster and thrashier again, but it just simply doesn't work anymore because the band has evolved past writing such music. Trying to regress back into writing typical thrash metal of their debut with mere hints of the vastly superior work they've done since (i.e. Infected Nations) worked once for Evile with their last album, but this time they've kind of shot themselves in the foot and come up with something that gives you a glimpse of greatness, then covers it up with riffs and arrangements that have become so banal that you begin to wonder if Skull was a better album when it was called Five Serpents' Teeth. Once again, there are some brilliant songs on this album and there's an underlying sense of achievement if you dig deep enough and stick with it, but having listened to the album a fair few times from start to finish over the past two days, I cannot bring myself to justify a score higher than 3/5. Skull, for me at least, is a big disappointment but not without it's merits so fans will certainly find at least something to enjoy here. That said, the band have spent the best part of a decade releasing music that I've loved and failed to find fault with, so maybe it was about time that I found a release rather tiring. Alas, here's hoping that Evile can pull themselves back up for album five in two years.
Evile managed to get their own sound rather early on in their career - by their second album in fact, something that can take a lot of bands quite a few releases to obtain - which is great for them really. It ensured that they'd have an identity in an ocean of new thrash bands who for the most part, all sounded the goddamn same and didn't really offer anything to fans. However managing to get an identifiable sound so early on in a career bears the risk of early stagnation, which Evile haven't had a problem with since they've gone out of their way to make each album considerably different from the previous one. But Skull seems to be the album that's finally caught up to them with their overdraft slips screaming "Guys! Guys! You forgot to pay these in!" and it does so... well, quite blatantly. By no means is Skull a bad album - far from it - but it seems that Evile's sound has reached the point where I'm begging for them to try something else instead of finding a happy medium between their two best albums. Their performance is the best yet, but the composition just reeks of an old wooly hat that hasn't been washed since 2009 yet has still been worn every day since by the greasy sheepish thrash fans that this album seems to be aimed at.
There seems to be a reoccuring idea of fast thrash riffing here that, despite being frenzied and speedy, lacks any of the catchiness of previous albums and is repeated so wearily often and with each repetition being so unbearably similar-sounding that it almost becomes the album's gimmick - like a running joke that the band put in to see how many people would notice. That's not to say that the whole record is made up of these riffs entirely and there are instances when it's quite effective, but a majority of reprises feel forced with a let's-put-it-in-for-the-hell-of-thrashiness vibe eminating from the offending tracks. And the repetition isn't strictly limited to these riffs either - if there's one thing that Evile have managed to balance effectively, it's the length of their songs and with Skull the band just haven't managed to find that balance where it's needed. Some sections are repeated too many times or in some instances just don't feel like they should be present in the first place, with a lot of tried-and-tested-to-the-point-of-nausea thrash meal arrangements being adopted and the occasional excruciatingly long intro or mid section ruining the pace of some otherwise decent tracks here. Matt Drake's vocal patterns seem to be extraordinarily similar throughout the whole record as well, and while his melodies are fantastic (more on those later) he seems to have a habit of trying to cram a little too much into a particular pattern in places and it makes the whole thing sound kind of... disjointed, or rushed. Track lengths, despite adding up to 45 minutes or so of runtime (which is about right for an album) simply cannot be justified with this level of monotony - padding tracks out with constant and needless repetition, be it intentional or unintentional, just comes across as poor songwriting for me. A majority of the tracks here are over four minutes with a fair few breaching six and only one under four which is simply too long when only a small handful of the songs present have legitimate excuse for their length.
This aside, Skull does have a lot of redeeming qualities too. The band have at least made an effort to try something a little bit different here and there, with What You Become being the main subject here. It's a nice mid paced, groove laden track that despite falling victim to the aforementioned repetition bug really flows quite nicely and exhibits the band's ability to write music that isn't just speed for speeds sake. Tomb is an astonishing track with plenty of clean guitars leading into some crunchy and eerie riffing, and Head of the Demon is quite possibly the best track on the album sounding like the Evile that everyone knows and loves - catchiness, heaviness, excellent atmosphere and some slight death metal tinges to it's sound in places. The iTunes bonus track A Sinister Call is actually really, really good and fits far better as the album closer than New Truths, Old Lies does which is rather frustrating to say the least so I'd highly recommend picking up the iTunes version if possible. A lot of the tracks here do have some great riffing tucked away admist the needlessly-frenzied-and-fast-for-repetition's-sake stuff that plagues the album throughout, and Matt Drake definitely helps the album with some his vocal melodies. For the most part they're during the chorus, but Head of the Demon and Tomb manage to help carry the entire songs instead of just putting on the anthemic chorus suit. The opening track Underworld is another track that's very well constructed despite having a few of those annoying fast riffs and certainly gets the album off to a good start, it's just a shame that a majority of what follows is surrounded by ideas that really just don't seem to fit very well, with a couple of songs - Outsider in particular - just coming across as rather stale and kind of... poorly written musically. It's not that Evile didn't make the effort, but they just didn't quite manage to get it right this time.
I really, REALLY wanted to love Skull. I've been so satisfied by Evile's previous work and I was so excited for Skull, but I just can't like it as much as I want to. It's fallen into the same trap as Sodom's latest album - it tries to 'go back to the roots' and be faster and thrashier again, but it just simply doesn't work anymore because the band has evolved past writing such music. Trying to regress back into writing typical thrash metal of their debut with mere hints of the vastly superior work they've done since (i.e. Infected Nations) worked once for Evile with their last album, but this time they've kind of shot themselves in the foot and come up with something that gives you a glimpse of greatness, then covers it up with riffs and arrangements that have become so banal that you begin to wonder if Skull was a better album when it was called Five Serpents' Teeth. Once again, there are some brilliant songs on this album and there's an underlying sense of achievement if you dig deep enough and stick with it, but having listened to the album a fair few times from start to finish over the past two days, I cannot bring myself to justify a score higher than 3/5. Skull, for me at least, is a big disappointment but not without it's merits so fans will certainly find at least something to enjoy here. That said, the band have spent the best part of a decade releasing music that I've loved and failed to find fault with, so maybe it was about time that I found a release rather tiring. Alas, here's hoping that Evile can pull themselves back up for album five in two years.
1. Underworld
2. Skull
3. The Naked Sun
4. Head Of The Demon
5. Tomb
6. Words Of The Dead
7. Outsider
8. What You Become
9. New Truths, Old Lies
10: A Sinister Call (Itunes Bonus track)
2. Skull
3. The Naked Sun
4. Head Of The Demon
5. Tomb
6. Words Of The Dead
7. Outsider
8. What You Become
9. New Truths, Old Lies
10: A Sinister Call (Itunes Bonus track)
Label: http://www.earache.com
Reviewer: Dave Ingram Jr.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013
Next review:
Zombiefication - At The Caves Of Eternal
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