Napalm Records - 2023
6.5/10
Seemingly out of left-field, the latest Evile album hit the scenes just over a year ago, and it took me until about now to finally conjure up some thoughts. Its lack of hype caused it to catch me offguard, and the strange makeup in general made the band's sixth outing The Unknown sit differently with me than probably any prior album. While they've always been a staple thrash metal act in my rotation, 2021's re-launching of the band with Hell Unleashed left me disappointed. Thus, my hopes for its follow-up weren't exactly high.
With that said, I do think The Unknown is a slight step forward. The prior album suffered from the generic thrash tropes that make many a modern band feel like throwaway "dime-a-dozen" acts, so I was glad to see things take a different direction here. Nearly half of the record is far more somber, feeling like "Tomb" off of 2013's Skull was an entire album with a different vocalist. Slower riff chugs and baritone vocal lines crawl all over this side, raking in stronger bass presence in a non-threatening way. Then, the back half seemingly "wakes up" and returns to a far more thrash metal oriented sound, looking back towards the band's older days for direction.
Unfortunately, two problems plague this otherwise interesting idea. For one, the inconsistency is just a little too jarring, and feels awkward between the two sides. Secondly, much of both ends contain too many songs that either drag on longer than they needed to, or lack memorability. It should be unsurprising that the shorter, more direct tunes are the few exceptions for me. "Out Of Sight" kicks in beautifully, delivering a thrash blow that the band hasn't landed for me in over a decade, while "Sleepless Eyes" just before that seems to have the opposite effect. The latter lets out emotion that I couldn't find in any of the other earlier tracks, despite that being what I think the band was going for.
Otherwise, it becomes a game of "I can groove with this" vs. "this bores the shit out of me." The vocal melodies over harder passages in the likes of "Beginning Of The End" are fun, and the dreary atmosphere of "The Mask We Wear" are notable, but I can't say they really do much for me in the long run. Evile are essentially an entirely different band than what they were from 2004-2013, and while I can appreciate what they're doing to an extent, I struggle to jive with either of the past two records. It isn't likely I'll return to either again for a long time.
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