Evile – Barfly –
Wednesday 15th April 2009
The first date of the “We Who Are About
To Tour” adventure, and also Evile's first UK headlining
tour, promised much. New material from the forthcoming album for
starters. The first band to grace the stage however were...
Mutant.
Funny how time flies. Unbelievably it's been nearly two years
since I first saw Mutant at a Reanimator all-dayer
at the nearby Irish Centre. Even more unbelievably they're still
unsigned (although it would appear that the band are happy with
this state of affairs). On the evidence of tonight's performance
they are going to make a lot more friends on this tour. Their
“Laserdrome” EP was launched tonight, and
played in entirety, along with a couple of well established Mutant
classics. Lead singer/guitarist Tom's opening address to the assembled
horde regarded the echo on his mic (“keep going until I
sound like King Diamond!”) and having achieved the required
effect the band launched into a set of clinical old school thrash.
What followed was half an hour of mayhem and the sizeable pit
loved them. Musically they were solid as a rock throughout, and
Tom was an entertaining and charismatic frontman. In view of the
current thrash resurgence surely it's only a matter of time before
Mutant receive the acclaim they deserve. Set list; “Scrap
Brain Zone”, “Zombie Holocaust”, “Laserdrome”,
“Turbo Hyper Ultra Mega Power”, “The Rauncher”,
“Psycho Surgery”.
Trigger
The Bloodshed had stepped in at two days notice following
Warpath's unfortunate withdrawal from the tour, and were
promoting their recently released album “The Great Depression”.
With their different musical style they were on a hiding to nothing
really, and I kept thinking of Job For A Cowboy sandwiched
between Evile and Megadeth last year. I wasn't
that impressed when I saw them supporting Meshuggah to
be honest, and although they got a far better sound tonight, I
was still disappointed. Pity really because I'm a huge fan of
death metal. Regrettably their style leant more towards a deathcore/grindcore
hybrid and for the most part I thought they sacrificed power for
speed. During their penultimate song there was a slower section
of frightening ferocity and tone, and their set closer also started
promisingly. Generally though their wall of sound was riff shy
and fast for the sake of it. Maybe I'm too much of an old school
death metal fan (I do consider myself a Florida/Morrisound
purist!) - I'll be interested to see how they get on at Hammerfest.
Can't fault them as musicians (apart from the drummer triggering
- grrrr), I just found the end result somewhat pointless. Set
list; “Terminus”, “The Infliction Of Tophet”,
“Retribution”, “The Scourging Impurity”,
“The Great Depression”, “Warbound”, “Laceration”,
“The Dead World”.
At
around 9.35pm the smoke machines started. By the time a hugely
familiar intro started more than five minutes later the fog effect
was complete and Evile took to the stage. “We
Who Are About To Die” started the carnage and was staggering
in its execution. Just over an hour later Evile's job
was done, the grin factor had hit maximum, and two new songs had
been aired for the first time. “Demolition”
and a still to be titled tune showed considerable promise and
will doubtless be show-stoppers once they've been polished with
a few more live performances. Evile hadn't played for
several months due to Ol's accident, and they gave it their all.
This was a hugely slick performance. Tempo changes were precise
and the level of chug took you back to the Big Four in their prime.
Musically Evile were faultless and played one of the best sets
I've seen this year. The majority of “Enter The Grave”
was played, and, aside from the opener, I'd nominate “Bathe
In Blood” and “Man Against Machine”
as the highlights. Evile came up trumps with their debut
album, let's hope things go to plan in the studio later in the
year. If they do the sky's the limit for them, and I can't think
of many bands who deserve it more. Set list; “We Who
Are About To Die”, “Armoured Assault”, “Killer
From The Deep”, “Man Against Machine”, “Demolition”,
“Thrasher”, “First Blood”, “Bathe
In Blood”, “Untitled”, “Enter The Grave”,
(encore) “Schizophrenia”.
