Enter The Grave - Evile

Evile- Enter the Grave

Matt Drake
Ol Drake
Mike Alexander
Ben Carter

There's been a massive decline in thrash metal, ever since Nu-metal came onto the scene; losing its creativity and credibility; it died a sudden death. Until in the last 2-3 years, there's been a massive revival in thrash metal. This band has been riding the new wave of thrash metal that has been occurring in the last few years; ...
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1. Enter the Grave
2. The Thrasher
3. First Blood
4. Man Against Machine
5. Burned alive
6. Killer from the Deep
7. We who are about to Die
8. Schizophrenia
9. Bathe in Blood
10. Armoured Assault


One thing I have to definitely comment on is the vocals; Drake has the best modern thrash vocalist I've heard for a while. He possesses an aggressive voice ... more

Evile- Enter the Grave

Matt Drake
Ol Drake
Mike Alexander
Ben Carter

There's been a massive decline in thrash metal, ever since Nu-metal came onto the scene; losing its creativity and credibility; it died a sudden death. Until in the last 2-3 years, there's been a massive revival in thrash metal. This band has been riding the new wave of thrash metal that has been occurring in the last few years; many bands which focusses on being retro and bringing back the glory of the old thrash metal days. Most bands who attempt to do this are fairly generic and nothing to set them apart; is there something that Evile has the rest don't have?

Evile is a promising British band; hailing from Huddersfield, England. They had a band ' Metal Militia' before the creation of Evile; where they got together to play covers; mainly Metallica, Testament and other Bay Area thrash bands; as a tribute band of sorts. So it is no surprise that they have a massive influence from these bands circa 1986 era.

Their songs are totally honest and exactly like their idols: 10 songs of fast, furious and catchy songs with pummelling riffs. The riffs- there area lot of heavy fast riffs that doesn't sound the same littered throughout. The band doesn't pull any surprise punches as they open up with the riff-heavy 'Enter the Grave'; some might find themselves being reminded of Bay Area thrash bands which is not surprising but it is still a pretty good listen nonetheless. 'Thrasher'; it is what it is! A definitely thrashing song with so many riffs piled on each other, so catchy that I can't help singing along with the chorus 'Bow down to the Thrasher!'. It does feel a bit familiar when compared to Testament's 'Into the Pit' song. It's definitely a song that will be used in their gigs. The riff-fest carries in the next few songs ' First Blood' ' Man Against Machine'. For some reason when I spin this album, I find my attention waning as it approaches the fourth/fifth song. This is not to say that the songs get rubbish or anything; they just don't do anything to grab my attention. The songs increasingly gets longer towards the end; setting up mid-fast tempo songs; where they build up slowly to become rather thrashy and riff heavy in the middle. This is done pretty well in ' Bathe in Blood' and 'We Who Are About to Die'. The former is 6 minute song that doesn't drag on for too long; the latter is a 8 minute song that is pretty cool; it has some remnants of Slayer in it; but I think it is a tad too long however. It could do with some chopping up.

1. Enter the Grave
2. The Thrasher
3. First Blood
4. Man Against Machine
5. Burned alive
6. Killer from the Deep
7. We who are about to Die
8. Schizophrenia
9. Bathe in Blood
10. Armoured Assault

One thing I have to definitely comment on is the vocals; Drake has the best modern thrash vocalist I've heard for a while. He possesses an aggressive voice that shows the attitude of the 80s very well; however some people might feel it is an imitation of Tom Araya- vocalist of Slayer. I honestly think Drake pulls it off well with his own tinge of unique-ness on the vocals nonetheless. His lyrics wouldn't look out of place alongside the 80's thrash; glorifying war and death.

The production in this is absolutely fantastic; having been mixed by Flemming Rasmussen; who mixed Metallica's classic 'Masters of Puppets' and 'Justice..For All' albums. The sound is very crisp and does showcast the band's effort efficiently.

The 10 songs are uniformly aggressive and incredibly tight; with very good production; and it is a lot of fun checking this out. Overall; there is nothing new here that they bring to the genre; they are re-hashing the same ideas that many bands have done before. A lot of people seem not to like this band precisely for this reason. My opinion, I don't particularly care if it's the same rehashed ideas as along it's been done well and it's fun to listen to! This album is a pretty decent thrash offering, but not a classic however. There are far better bands out there that's at the forefront of the newly-revived thrash metal genre: Merciless Death and SkeletonWitch. Evile may overtake them with their new album; time will tell. I expect their new album that's released this year will be a lot better. I would rate this 70%.

Standouts from the CD: Enter the Grave, The Thrasher, Bathe in Blood, Schizophrenia, We who are about to Die and perhaps Armoured Assault.

I purchased this CD from off Amazon for around £8. Definitely a worthy purchase and a worthy CD to have a place in any metaller's collection.
More information at

Band's website: www.evile.co.uk

Their label
Earache
Website: www.earache.com 

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