Evile certainly talk the talk, claiming elsewhere in this issue that Five Serpent’s Teeth displays a vital maturity absent from their previous two releases. But can the Huddersfield-based thrashers also walk the walk?
Perhaps surprisingly for a group that got off the ground by playing Metallica covers for a living, yes they can.
Within Evile’s chosen genre, a certain degree of familiarity isn’t just forgivable, it’s a prerequisite. And, sure enough, the four-piece manage to sound like all of the Big Four across the album’s 10 neck ache-inducing tracks. However, until now they’ve never had the balls to attempt anything as sophisticated as In Memoriam, a Nothing Else Matters-style power ballad tribute to their late bassist Mike Alexander.
But to say that Evile have crafted a classic with their third album would be an exaggeration. FST is not their answer to Master Of Puppets, although the margin of improvement suggests that some sort of long-term future remains a definite possibility.
