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EVILE
The Unknown
Napalm Records

Dementia!
Pressure from the music industry!
Parenthood!

The unintentional eight-year gap for which UK speed demons EVILE had found themselves in following the release of their fifth album Hell Unleashed back in 2021 had been born from a series of setbacks - relentless touring resulting in frontman OL Drake compromising his health to the point that he'd even quit the band for five years, a European tour from which the band's longtime bassist Mike Alexander would tragically not return from, and the-then second or third wave of the pandemic having closed down much of the planet once more just as touring arrangements to promote Hell Unleashed were underway.

It was a proverbial trial by fire which the band was determined to avoid during the recording process of their follow-up album The Unknown - and with the new album taking less than a quarter of the time to record by comparison, it appears that EVILE have finally banished the demons from their own past, ready to face new ones in their midst. Considerably and intentionally more slow-paced than their previous efforts, The Unknown shows EVILE at their most profound, personal and deep, while also proving heavier, stronger and more raucous than ever. Both the title track and the brooding number "The Mask We Wear" open the album with its respected themes of the horrors of dementia and the gruelling pressures of social conformity - though even the lyrics for "Reap What You Sow" and "At Mirror's Speech" appear to also suggest that their subject matter also applies in this case. And while the band's newfound haunting elements of balancing a dark, melodic and almost mesmerizing vibe with colossal, heavy riffage and thundering drums have become more musically prevalent throughout this album than ever before on moody doomsayer tracks such as "Beginning Of The End" and "When Mortal Coil Sheds", they can still produce a couple of their fast thrashier moments on songs such as "Sleepless Eyes" (about the round-the-clock moments of parenthood) and "Out Of Sight".

Indeed, it's thanks to the combined skills of Adam Smith (rhythm guitar), Joel Graham (bass) and Ben Carter (drums) who help provide Drake with the sonic and heavy background to The Unknown and, in turn, have provided EVILE with a newfound sense of familiarity once more while they narrate their experiences in this performance called life. And the experience indeed shows in the way that the band have honed out this latest album through many tribulations in a shorter time frame, proving that if they can get through a global pandemic in two albums, they can accomplish anything.

5.0 Out Of 5.0

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