EVILE: “HELL UNLEASHED”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jun 012021
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the latest album by the UK band Evile, which was released in April by Napalm Records.)

I think the story going on with this album and band right now is pretty cool: Matt Drake stepping down from Evile due to health issues, only for his brother, who’d left the band previously to pursue other endeavors, to come back and keep the band going.

Matt and Ol Drake both worked hard on this band. Evile is undoubtedly at the absolute top of the thrash resurgence hierarchy if ever a band deserved it. Their immaculately calculated mix of technicality, precision, speed, melody, chaos, and brutality is something a lot of their contemporaries just lack in some form or another, Moreover, Matt and Ol Drake are one of the most comprehensively synergistic guitar duos in modern metal. Ol Drake is, frankly, probably the only shredder in the modern thrash metal space worth paying attention to right now.

So, considering what just happened — the Evile we knew didn’t unify; it just changed forms again with only half of the core that defined the band still present — what do they do from here?

They write the best thrash metal record of 2021, past, present, or future. Continue reading »

EVILE: “SKULL”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 212013
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by British thrashers Evile, which is out now via Century Media and Earache.)

Evile may very well be THE best of the so called re-thrash movement (I don’t count Vektor, they have a completely original sound IMO), bringing together elements of Forbidden, Slayer, Sepultura, and early Metallica to create a sound that has managed to remain old school, true to the roots, yet still distinct in its delivery.

With three killer albums to their credit thus far, the question, of course, is whether or not Skull manages to be a genuinely awesome fourth. I really think that opinion comes down to what you’ve liked most over the course of Evile’s three previous albums. While Evile have always had “their” sound, the three albums pre-dating this one had distinctly different areas of emphasis among the elements, which made them distinctly different from one another.

Skull is an odd edition in the Evile discography, mainly because it’s three steps back and strikes a ton of notes resonant with their debut Enter the Grave. The songs are one-note as far as tempo goes for the most part, the riffs are stripped-down, and the gang shouts are back. However, none of this changes the fact that I love it front to back. Like Enter the Grave, Skull is packed with adrenaline-surged immediacy and cut-throat riffage out the ass. Although I think by now these things are just to be expected with an Evile album. Continue reading »

TODAY IN THRASH: EVILE AND ESSENCE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 262013
 

While wandering the interhole last night and this morning I came across many items of interest — too many to pack into a single round-up post. So I’ll subdivide my findings and start here, with two discoveries that should interest thrash heads far and wide.

EVILE

You’re looking at the first item above. It’s the recently revealed cover art for Skull, the forthcoming fourth album by the UK’s Evile, which is due for release on May 27 by Earache Records and Century Media. The artist is none other than NCS favorite Eliran Kantor. Like all of his art, this piece snags the attention and pulls it into the details of the work — which are mysterious. Evile explain that the artwork embodies a concept that’s connected to the music . . . but what that is we’ll have to learn later as more details trickle out.

As for the music, Evile drummer Ben Carter is quoted as saying, “Our fans can expect this album to be a return to our thrashier roots, as well as exploring new ground in typical EVILE form.”

And now it’s time for some actual music instead of musical forecasts. Continue reading »

EARACHE AND OSMOSE ON BANDCAMP

 Metal News  17 Responses »
Nov 122012
 

We’ve been singing the praises of Bandcamp since the early days of that platform. In a relatively short time, it has become a vital source for the streaming and distribution of metal, recently expanding its service to become a vehicle for the distribution of merch as well as digital music in a variety of high-quality formats. One sign of Bandcamp’s success is the increasing use of the site by metal labels to stream and distribute albums in their catalogues.

Thanks to MaxR at Metal Bandcamp — which remains THE best way to keep up with the appearance of new metal releases on Bandcamp — we’ve learned that two more labels have recently established Bandcamp beachheads: Earache Records and Osmose Productions.

EARACHE

As far as we’re concerned, this is really big news. Earache Records was founded in the late 80s and was one of the true pioneers in releasing extreme music. Of course, they’re still going strong today, but their back catalogue is like a museum for the history of hardcore and metal.

So far, Earache has added five albums from their catalogue to Bandcamp: Slaughter of the Soul by At the Gates (1995); Five Serpent’s Teeth by Evile (2011); Pressure and Time (Redux) by Rival Sons (2012); Scum (1987) [Full Dynamic Range 2012 Edition] by Napalm Death; and From Enslavement To Obliteration (1988) [Full Dynamic Range 2012 Edition], also by Napalm Death. Continue reading »

BLOODSTOCK 2012 – A REVIEW AND MUSIC FROM THE FESTIVAL (Part 2)

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 292012
 

(Our UK correspondent Andy Synn, who is a lucky devil, attended the mammoth BLOODSTOCK festival earlier this month and delivered a report on the performances. You can find his review of the festival’s Friday and Saturday shows at this location, and today we’ve got his write-up about what he saw and heard on BLOODSTOCK’s final day — plus a collection of videos (some of which are full sets) at the end.)

SUNDAY

Unfortunately, the first band to assault my ears on the last day of Bloodstock were the generally uninspired Kobra & The Lotus, a band who the metal media have been trying desperately to ram down our throats for some time now, but who don’t have the songs or presence to justify it. Not the worst band in the world by a long shot, but memorable only for how forgettable they were, and for the singer’s often flat, often forced, vocals.

So it’s a good thing we had Nile! After some admittedly hilarious sound problems (where you could hear the sound guy shouting and swearing at everyone to ‘Fuck off! We’re not ready!” after Nile tried to start their intro a tad early), the quartet finally kicked into a sterling set of challenging death metal mechanics. The new songs are definitely finding their place in the complex algorithm of Nile’s set, while a run-in by members of The Black Dahlia Murder for the climactic chant-along of “Black Seeds of Vengeance” helped add to that special “festival-feeling”.

Speaking of The Black Dahlia Murder, they were up next and also faced the unappealing task of presenting their razor-sharp melodic death metal to a crowd that had seemingly greeted their announcement with either measured ambivalence or outright hostility. But with good natured aplomb, and some hilarious stage banter, the quintet were definitely up to the challenge, packing an impressive number of songs into a short time slot in an effort to win over as many with their music as possible. Kudos for the handling of the naked guy (“Raise him up, I want to see his penis… no wait, keep him away from security… oh no, they got him. Enjoy jail dude!”), and well done on ending the set with more people in the field than they started with. Continue reading »

EVILE: “FIVE SERPENT’S TEETH”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  10 Responses »
Sep 302011
 

(Damn.  Unless my math is wrong, this makes TheMadIsraeli’s fifth straight review in as many days. Lest you think he cranked these out in less than 24 hours a piece, I know for a fact that he held onto these to make them more timely — and then flooded me with them, just to make sure I didn’t lay around all week like a beached whale watching TV and eating Cheeto’s.)

Alright, I know most of you NCS readers are simply not cool enough to love thrash, but THAT IS OKAY.  I will show you the way, be your Moses that leads you to the metal promised land and SHOW YOU THE ERROR OF YOUR WAYS.  I will be like Noah and part the waters of your tainted metal taste! [EDITOR’S NOTE: The author’s comment about your lack of coolness is solely the opinion of the author and doesn’t necessarily represent the official position of NCS, which generally sucks up to its readers like a $2 meth whore.]

In all seriousness though, how anyone can dislike thrash is beyond me, especially when it’s this good.  Evile already have two albums to their credit, the delightfully old school and take-no-prisoners Enter The Grave, and the technical and progressive ecstasy that was Infected Nations.  Now we see Evile returning to whoop asses again with their third outing Five Serpent’s Teeth — the only thrash album that matters all this year. Continue reading »

RANDOM STUFF

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Jul 312011
 

(Our man Israel Flanders has a few words and musical teasers for the forthcoming albums by Textures, Evile, and Revocation, plus his plans for upcoming reviews.)

Alright, I decided it was time to do one of these “post random shit” deals.  Mostly stuff I personally care about, but things you all might be interested in, too.


If you aren’t aware of who Textures are, I’d wager you’ve been under a rock for some time.  One of the very first djent bands to emerge after Meshuggah, these guys, I would dare have the nerve to assert, have more to do with modern djent as we understand it than Meshuggah does. With their unique brand of polyryhthmic grooving, clean ambience, and a history that has included two obscenely talented vocalists in their fold (ex-vocalist Eric Kalsbeek) and now ex-CiLiCe vocalist Daniel De Gogh, Textures has made their mark in a way that can’t be ignored.

Their new album Dualism arrives in September, and I’m absolutely psyched.  After the jump, I’m including the three studio reports released for this album, as the song clips included in these sound really awesome.  Also below is a VERY GOOD high quality video of Textures playing one of the new songs live. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 6)

 Forthcoming Albums  2 Responses »
Jun 022011
 


Damn, I’m finally able to go outside without shivering and being beaten about the head and shoulders with high winds and rain blowing sideways. That must mean it’s June in Seattle!  And so it is. A largely dismal May is behind us, the Seattle Mariners are astonishingly only a game and a half out of first place in their division (that’s baseball for you outlanders), and the summer lies ahead.

What else lies ahead? A bunch of new metal, of course. And because it’s the beginning of a new month, we’re bringing you another installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, in which we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — this isn’t a cumulative list. If we found out about a new album during April or preceding months, we wrote about them in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 4)

 Forthcoming Albums  15 Responses »
Apr 022011
 


Technically, we should have posted this yesterday, but yesterday was April Fool’s Day, and people might have thought we were making up some of this shit. But it’s all true, and nothing happens on April 2 to plant doubt about truth. Except for what causes doubt to be planted about truth on any other day of the year.

Here we are at the beginning of the second quarter of 2011 — the time when for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is supposed to spring.  Where I live, spring has apparently been victimized by a brutal street mugging and is hospitalized at the moment.  A few plants have been deluded into thinking it’s spring, but for the rest of our local world, it’s still fucking winter.

Fortunately, the change of the seasons have fuck all to do with the release of metal. What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days (or in this case, the last 31 days) about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming New Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. There’s some awesome shit on the way. Dive in after the jump. Continue reading »