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› Evile – Enter The Grave
Earache Records – 27/8/2007
Over the past 9 months or so, you can hardly turn a corner on the online UK metal community without bumping into something to do with Evile. Indeed, the band managed to land themselves in the pages of certain more well-known metal magazines over the summer. After signing with Earache in October 2006, Evile have been on a Dutch tour and hooked up with Flemming Rasmussen (yes, the one who did Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets, just in case you’d forgotten) to produce their debut full-length album. Things certainly look to be on the up for one of the spearheads of the revitalised UK thrash scene.
But could they deliver? In the live arena Evile are certainly a force to be reckoned with, and their early demos are certainly HeadBang-worthy, but could they live up to expectations playing with the big dogs with a full-length?
In this journalist’s opinion, yes. Rasmussen shows that, despite his most famous work being released over 20 years ago, he hasn’t lost his touch for quality thrash metal. The band have said in interviews that he is a very hands-on producer, and he has worked wonders with Evile’s raw talent (as well as getting a cheeky gang-shout of “Master!” in “First Blood”) and giving a great boost to their promising sound which results in (though it pains me to say it) one of Yorkshire’s finest exports.
A question that many fans of the band asked is would an Evile full-length album be able to retain a listener’s patience adequately? Well, again, yes. Despite some of the riffs being samey in places, listened to as a whole (as albums should be) the CD works really well. The dynamics are tactically structured, giving an excellent flow to the album and producing one of the best debut albums I’ve heard in a very long time.
This may not be the most original of works, but the reason it attains such a high score is that this could be a defining point in the early stages of this new wave of British thrash. Much like Machine Head’s “Burn My Eyes”, this is a fantastic album which will be difficult to live up to, and will surely attract many more followers.
9/10
Harry
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