Evile (ENGLAND)

[Horex]

Evile - Skull (2013)













Year : 2021
Style : Heavy Metal , Thrash Metal
Country : United Kingdom
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans
Size : 117 mb

Bio:

Evile are a british Heavy Metal outfit from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire in the UK.Founded by school friends Matt Drake and Ben Carter, later joined by Matt’s brother Ol on lead guitar, a short search for a bass player via an ad in a local guitar store saw bassist Mike Alexander join the fold. Evile, yet to be called so, initially formed in 1999 playing covers in their local area. Initially Influenced by bands such as Metallica, Sepultura, Exodus, Annihilator and Slayer to name but a few, the band would create “Evile” in 2003. Despite being un-signed at the time, Evile were hand-picked to headline the second stage of Bloodstock Open Air ’06.After seeing their performance at Bloodstock ’06 the legendary Earache Records offered Evile a record deal. They signed in October ’06. Evile would go on to record their debut “Enter the Grave” in Copenhagen’s Sweet Silence Studios with Flemming Rasmussen of Metallica fame at the helm. “Kerrang!” dubbed Evile to be “Carrying the genre’s whole ‘revival’ on their shoulders”, with other positive reviews from press such as Metal Hammer, Terrorizer, Zero Tolerance and Classic Rock Magazine. Evile would go on to win Metal Hammer’s “Get in the Ring” battle of the bands competition on Rockworld TV.The band went on to be main support to Megadeth (Feb/Mar of ’08 in Europe) and Exodus (Apr of ’08 in Europe) which in the same month saw Evile’s “Thrasher” included on Xbox360/PS3 videogame Rockband as downloadable content.The second chapter in Evile’s history comes by the name “Infected Nations” – produced by Russ Russell and original artwork by Michael Whelan. A modern take on Thrash Metal, finding the band coming into a sound of their own. The album went into the top 100 album chart in the UK after its release on September 21st ’09. Evile kicked off the release on September 25th ’09 with a release show/party at Islington Academy, London to then embark on a 2 month long European tour with Amon Amarth and Entombed. After playing 2 headline shows in Germany on the way to Scandinavia, disaster struck when founding bassist Mike Alexander (1977-2009) collapsed in Lulea, Sweden and tragically died on his way to hospital from a pulmonary embolism. He was 32 years old.The band would organise two special tribute shows to Mike (in Leeds and London, UK) in December 09 running a special raffle in which many bands donated items to raise money for Mike’s family, some of which included Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer and Machine Head. After a short break the band announced they would continue as they meant to go on. Auditions were held and Evile subsequently welcomed new member Joel Graham (ex-Rise to Addiction) into the fold to permanently take on the bass duties.2010 saw Evile tour extensively throughout North America with bands such as Kreator, Overkill, Forbidden, Voivod, Vader and Warbringer, aswell as European festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Bloodstock Open Air and Hellfest.Having just released their third album ‘Five Serpent’s Teeth‘, the band look set to take on the world in 2011 and beyond.

Album:

I love technical guitar playing, I love meaty riffs, I love all this at speed. One thing that gets me excited even more than all that though is a band that progresses their sound and makes changes, even subtle ones, between each record. Unsurprisingly then I love Evile, and their latest record especially.Since their debut album Enter The Grave Evile have forged their own Metallica-esq brand of fast, tight, pin-point thrash metal. However after the debut, there wasn't really anything more they needed to prove in the fast, technical ability and sheer ripping thrash categories and so each album since then has seen experiments and changes in their style. Slowing things a little for their second album, mixing speeds more for the third and adding more vocal melody. In each of these last two albums they got closer and closer to the optimum mix, "the Evile sound" that is present throughout their work as a constant undercurrent. So how close were they with their fourth album.Skull is the perfect storm as far as I'm concerned. The speed is balanced with slower parts in the right places, the solos are ripping and technically beautiful as ever from Ol (I'm devastated he has left!) and the riffs shred. Matt's vocals are the best they have been and it is great to hear how he has developed from his loud shouting in the first album to his melodic singing on their fourth. But what makes this is the songwriting. All the above elements are combined perfectly and this is straight up one of the best thrash albums of the last few years. It's up there with Testament's Dark Roots and Kreator's Phantom Antichrist for sure. This is what Evile have always been striving towards, this is what they always wanted to sound like and this is what modern thrash should sound like. It's not the wacky, tongue in cheek sort like Gama Bomb or The Waste, this is more akin to the pinpoint barrage of Megadeth or Annihilator, technical, fast, but wrapped in melody and delivered in a hurricane. Pick up a copy, bang your head sore and enjoy. I look forward to the next.

Line Up:

Ol Drake - Guitars (lead) (2004-2013, 2018-present), Vocals (2020-present) - See also: Ol Drake, Reabo, ex-Destruction (live)
Ol Drake - Guitars (lead)
Matt Drake - Guitars (rhythm), Vocals
Ben Carter - Drums (2004-present)

Tracklist:

01. Underworld 04:37
02. Skull 06:31
03. The Naked Sun 06:04
04. Head of the Demon 04:24
05. Tomb 07:26
06. Words of the Dead 04:16
07. Outsider 03:37
08. What You Become 04:54
09. New Truths, Old Lies 06:35




Download links for all albums only on our blog here: http://goodmetalandhar.do.am/

[Horex]

Evile - Hell Unleashed (2021)













Year : 2021
Style : Heavy Metal , Thrash Metal
Country : United Kingdom
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans
Size : 104 mb

Bio:

Evile are a british Heavy Metal outfit from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire in the UK.Founded by school friends Matt Drake and Ben Carter, later joined by Matt’s brother Ol on lead guitar, a short search for a bass player via an ad in a local guitar store saw bassist Mike Alexander join the fold. Evile, yet to be called so, initially formed in 1999 playing covers in their local area. Initially Influenced by bands such as Metallica, Sepultura, Exodus, Annihilator and Slayer to name but a few, the band would create “Evile” in 2003. Despite being un-signed at the time, Evile were hand-picked to headline the second stage of Bloodstock Open Air ’06.After seeing their performance at Bloodstock ’06 the legendary Earache Records offered Evile a record deal. They signed in October ’06. Evile would go on to record their debut “Enter the Grave” in Copenhagen’s Sweet Silence Studios with Flemming Rasmussen of Metallica fame at the helm. “Kerrang!” dubbed Evile to be “Carrying the genre’s whole ‘revival’ on their shoulders”, with other positive reviews from press such as Metal Hammer, Terrorizer, Zero Tolerance and Classic Rock Magazine. Evile would go on to win Metal Hammer’s “Get in the Ring” battle of the bands competition on Rockworld TV.The band went on to be main support to Megadeth (Feb/Mar of ’08 in Europe) and Exodus (Apr of ’08 in Europe) which in the same month saw Evile’s “Thrasher” included on Xbox360/PS3 videogame Rockband as downloadable content.The second chapter in Evile’s history comes by the name “Infected Nations” – produced by Russ Russell and original artwork by Michael Whelan. A modern take on Thrash Metal, finding the band coming into a sound of their own. The album went into the top 100 album chart in the UK after its release on September 21st ’09. Evile kicked off the release on September 25th ’09 with a release show/party at Islington Academy, London to then embark on a 2 month long European tour with Amon Amarth and Entombed. After playing 2 headline shows in Germany on the way to Scandinavia, disaster struck when founding bassist Mike Alexander (1977-2009) collapsed in Lulea, Sweden and tragically died on his way to hospital from a pulmonary embolism. He was 32 years old.The band would organise two special tribute shows to Mike (in Leeds and London, UK) in December 09 running a special raffle in which many bands donated items to raise money for Mike’s family, some of which included Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer and Machine Head. After a short break the band announced they would continue as they meant to go on. Auditions were held and Evile subsequently welcomed new member Joel Graham (ex-Rise to Addiction) into the fold to permanently take on the bass duties.2010 saw Evile tour extensively throughout North America with bands such as Kreator, Overkill, Forbidden, Voivod, Vader and Warbringer, aswell as European festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Bloodstock Open Air and Hellfest.Having just released their third album ‘Five Serpent’s Teeth‘, the band look set to take on the world in 2011 and beyond.

Album:

If there was one criticism of the thrash metal revival of the 2000s that continues to recur in both polite and impolite conversation alike, it’s the notion that the most prominent adherents were too interested in reliving the past rather than building upon it. Perhaps it didn’t help matters that there was a concurrent fascination with the cultural tropes of the 80s that came in with the style’s revival, embodied in the pizza and beer brand of party thrash that was spearheaded by the likes of Municipal Waste and Insanity Alert. Even some of the more technically charged and serious players in the early scene were not wholly immune to being labeled an overt throwback, most notably the British quartet Evile, who originally cut their teeth as a Metallica tribute band in the early 2000s and brought a number of derivative elements into their original music, not the least of which being vocalist and guitarist Matt Drake’s uncanny resemblance to James Hetfield’s signature gruff style.But staying power and weathering adversity has a way of silencing critics, and if unleashing four highly compelling studio albums weren’t enough to accomplish this, the massive comeback that is their latest offering Hell Unleashed is sure to do just that. Emerging after 8 years of studio silence and the loss of their aforementioned helmsman, a turn of events that have irreparably altered the trajectory of many a promising act, this album stands as one of the more impressive yet accessible reinventions to ever occur in thrash metal. Although they naturally haven’t full abandoned their stylistic affinity for Metallica, this time around the speed and ferocity has been amplified to the point of mid-80s Slayer levels of intensity, further bolstered by a more nasty and dissonant riffing approach. Likewise, Matt’s younger brother and lead guitarist Oliver “Ol” Drake brings a far deeper and more menacing vocal approach that falls somewhere between Chuck Billy’s present sound and the death metal-tinged one he displayed back in the late 90s.First impressions don’t necessarily define an album, but in this particular case, the tone and tenor of where Evile seek to take their fans is pretty clear at its very onset. The frenzied opening crusher “Paralysed” hurls things into an absolute fever pitch reminiscent of where Slayer went on Hell Awaits, though with a bit more of a precision-based riffing approach that is equally fast but a tad bit more organized. The guitar solo trotted out also has a bit more of an Alex Skolnick sense of systematic chaos rather than the noise-driven madness of King or Hanneman, though the creepy tonality at work throughout the song is definitely darker than classic or modern Testament. Following this mighty beast of a opener, the almost death/thrashing character of this album becomes a bit more pronounced via tremolo-driven mosh machines with an evil air about them such as “Gore” and the technically flashy “Disorder”, the former blurring the lines between the Bay Area sound and the more extreme character of Possessed and Sepultura, while the latter has some occasional flashes of early 90s Death and late 80s Pestilence influences.The auditory violence on display here is not the only indicator of a shift in direction towards a more extreme and blood red mold of thrash, as the subjects covered by the lyrics have a far more horrific quality relative to past releases. In addition to the almost death metal lyrical trappings of “Gore”, the wretched and chaotic fury of “The Things (1982)” delves head first into the horror trappings of the John Carpenter film it is named for, and musically bounces back and forth between being a rapid fire nod to Demolition Hammer and a slower, groovy creeper that occasionally reminds of Obituary. The slow-paced, undead romp turned Reign In Blood-inspired hyper-thrasher “Zombie Apocalypse” also lays the horror tropes on fairly thick, while Drake opts to go full Kerry King mode during the brief guitar solo burst. Even more conventional high octane speeders such as the closing title anthem “Hell Unleashed” and the creepy acoustic nod to Metallica’s “Harvester Of Sorrow” turned cruiser “Incarcerated” has more of an extreme mid-80s flavor more in line with Possessed and Slayer rather than the mainline Bay Area sound of the later 80s.For those that like their thrash metal as intense and frenetic as possible while also avoiding some of the comical elements that were fairly common during the thrash revival’s late 2000s heyday, it doesn’t get much better than this. The only real drawback to this album is that those who were used to Matt Drake’s more melodically dynamic vocal approach will find Oliver’s more throaty and deep growls and mutterings a tad static by comparison. But as with any thrash metal album worth its salt, this offering lives and dies by the riffs it brings to the table and on that front there is very little left to be desired. This is almost of the same caliber as Evile’s riveting 2007 debut Enter The Grave, and those who miss the days when this band was setting the standard of the revival alongside the likes of Warbringer and Angelus Apatrida in how the style could be intense without quite venturing into overt death/thrash territory, this is another fine example to emerge in the past couple years of how those days never totally left us.

Line Up:

Ol Drake Guitars (lead) (2004-2013, 2018-present), Vocals (2020-present) - See also: Ol Drake, Reabo, ex-Destruction (live)
Joel Graham Bass (2009-present) - See also: ex-Rise to Addiction, ex-Ninedenine
Adam Smith Guitars (2020-present) - See also: RipTide
Ben Carter - Drums (2004-present)

Tracklist:

01. Paralysed
02. Gore
03. Incarcerated
04. War of Attrition
05. Disorder
06. The Thing (1982)
07. Zombie Apocalypse
08. Control From Above
09. Hell Unleashed




Download links for all albums only on our blog here: http://goodmetalandhar.do.am/

[Horex]

Evile - The Unknown (Japan Edition) (2023)













Year : 2023 (Japan Edition)
Style : Heavy Metal , Thrash Metal
Country : United Kingdom
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans
Size : 117 mb

Bio:

Evile are a british Heavy Metal outfit from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire in the UK.Founded by school friends Matt Drake and Ben Carter, later joined by Matt’s brother Ol on lead guitar, a short search for a bass player via an ad in a local guitar store saw bassist Mike Alexander join the fold. Evile, yet to be called so, initially formed in 1999 playing covers in their local area. Initially Influenced by bands such as Metallica, Sepultura, Exodus, Annihilator and Slayer to name but a few, the band would create “Evile” in 2003. Despite being un-signed at the time, Evile were hand-picked to headline the second stage of Bloodstock Open Air ’06.After seeing their performance at Bloodstock ’06 the legendary Earache Records offered Evile a record deal. They signed in October ’06. Evile would go on to record their debut “Enter the Grave” in Copenhagen’s Sweet Silence Studios with Flemming Rasmussen of Metallica fame at the helm. “Kerrang!” dubbed Evile to be “Carrying the genre’s whole ‘revival’ on their shoulders”, with other positive reviews from press such as Metal Hammer, Terrorizer, Zero Tolerance and Classic Rock Magazine. Evile would go on to win Metal Hammer’s “Get in the Ring” battle of the bands competition on Rockworld TV.The band went on to be main support to Megadeth (Feb/Mar of ’08 in Europe) and Exodus (Apr of ’08 in Europe) which in the same month saw Evile’s “Thrasher” included on Xbox360/PS3 videogame Rockband as downloadable content.The second chapter in Evile’s history comes by the name “Infected Nations” – produced by Russ Russell and original artwork by Michael Whelan. A modern take on Thrash Metal, finding the band coming into a sound of their own. The album went into the top 100 album chart in the UK after its release on September 21st ’09. Evile kicked off the release on September 25th ’09 with a release show/party at Islington Academy, London to then embark on a 2 month long European tour with Amon Amarth and Entombed. After playing 2 headline shows in Germany on the way to Scandinavia, disaster struck when founding bassist Mike Alexander (1977-2009) collapsed in Lulea, Sweden and tragically died on his way to hospital from a pulmonary embolism. He was 32 years old.The band would organise two special tribute shows to Mike (in Leeds and London, UK) in December 09 running a special raffle in which many bands donated items to raise money for Mike’s family, some of which included Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer and Machine Head. After a short break the band announced they would continue as they meant to go on. Auditions were held and Evile subsequently welcomed new member Joel Graham (ex-Rise to Addiction) into the fold to permanently take on the bass duties.2010 saw Evile tour extensively throughout North America with bands such as Kreator, Overkill, Forbidden, Voivod, Vader and Warbringer, aswell as European festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Bloodstock Open Air and Hellfest.Having just released their third album ‘Five Serpent’s Teeth‘, the band look set to take on the world in 2011 and beyond.

Album:

Having re-established themselves with 2021’s Hell Unleashed, Evile’s sixth album follows it up with a decidedly different direction. In contrast to its predecessor’s borderline death-thrash, The Unknown plays like the hypothetical stopgap between The Black Album and Load with potent Alice In Chains influence informing the sludgy overcast. It’s not too far out of left field as past outings like Infected Nations and Five Serpent’s Teeth certainly had their share of chunky rhythms and melodic passages.Unfortunately, there’s a certain spark missing that makes for a faltering execution. Songs like “The Mask We Wear” and “Monolith” serve up some promising groove riff sets in the vein of “Sad But True” or “Horrorscope” but ultimately come off flat without anything else to bounce off them. The more melodic tracks don’t pan out much better as the opening title track doesn’t quite capitalize on its atmospheric promise while the vocals just aren’t powerful enough to carry the power ballad temple on “When Mortal Coils Shed.”There’s potential relief to be found in the back half’s bringing in some heavier elements, but these also tend to come up short. “Sleepless Eyes” and “Balance of Time” hearken back to old school thrash while “Out of Sight” has an almost punk brevity, but the actual writing doesn’t leave much of an impact. The same could be said for “At Mirror’s Speech” and “Beginning of the End” dipping into Pantera ground but ultimately going in one ear and out the other.As neat as it is to see Evile mix things up with The Unknown, it just doesn’t play much to the group’s natural strengths. I find myself wondering how this would’ve sounded with a proper lead singer at the helm; it’s easy to imagine these riffs with a little more pep and involved lines from a charismatic motormouth ala John Bush on top of them. Taken for what it is, the production and musicianship are solid enough and I’d hardly call it a disaster. Hopefully the band is able to find more ways to grow without revealing their shortcomings.

Line Up:

Ol Drake Guitars (lead) (2004-2013, 2018-present), Vocals (2020-present) - See also: Ol Drake, Reabo, ex-Destruction (live)
Joel Graham Bass (2009-present) - See also: ex-Rise to Addiction, ex-Ninedenine
Adam Smith Guitars (2020-present) - See also: RipTide
Ben Carter - Drums (2004-present)

Tracklist:

01. The Unknown 04:45
02. The Mask We Wear 05:18
03. Monolith 04:12
04. When Mortal Coils Shed 07:05
05. Sleepless Eyes 03:40
06. Out of Sight 02:57
07. At Mirror's Speech 05:12
08. Reap What You Sow 03:58
09. Beginning of the End 05:34
10. Balance of Time 04:16




Download links for all albums only on our blog here: http://goodmetalandhar.do.am/