Evildead will be releasing their new album on May 24th. It's already added to their MA page:
https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/E ... ce/1222592

They have always been one of my favourite C-list thrash metal bands. First two albums are classics and I really liked their reunion album from 2020.

First singles:

The album cover is super cringey.

Cool, I've always liked 'Annihilation of civilization' and must remember to revisit 'United states of anarchy', I remember liking it when it came out but it got lost in the usual flood of releases.
PS: The guy on the second cover looks like Josep Borrell, Catalan/Spanish politician who is now (inexplicably) head of diplomacy of the EU

i liked United States of Anarchy. im noticing on these two songs that the singer seems to really be phoning it in. he was never fantastic, but he at least brought some heat in his delivery. Raising Fresh Hell has zero energy to it, which is crazy given the lyrical subject.

i actually dig both pieces of art on these singles, but the album art is absolutely awful. doing an anti-lockdown thing in 2024? get with the times guys.

hope for a better mastering!

The detail of the sheep head guy's family photos where no one else has a sheep's head is quite funny. Even if you're generous about what message it sends out (government control people with fear, rather than antivaxx or anything) overall it just comes off as extraordinarily dated.

'Raising Fresh Hell' sounds like a parody of 80s metal. The kind of thing you'd see on an episode of Married...with Children.

Embarrassing.

Some bands haven't aged well. "C-list thrash metal" summed up this band for me. It wasn't that I thought they sucked or anything, rather, I just thought they were just super average and there was so many better bands out at the time that I never really got into them.

Not digging this at all. Annihilation of Civilization is a minor classic in my book and I like The Underworld too but both of their comeback albums haven't done anything for me. In fact it annoy's me that United States of Anarchy is their highest rated album on MA, which is a fuckin joke.

The new single 'Subjugated Souls' is so bad that it's almost entertaining.

Ranting about social media in 2024 is as edgy as Family Matters. The vocal delivery is feeble. The album art looks like it was lifted from a tshirt being sold out of a trailer at a Trump rally.

This sucks the big one.

it really is shocking how much weaker the singer has gotten. not like he was ever a powerhouse, but he could do that "atonal thrash shout" thing just fine on every other record. he sounded like himself on the record they came out with a few years ago! every song ive heard from this album sounds like they recorded him rehearsing the lyrics, or like he's recording while trying not to wake anyone up in the house. there's zero enthusiasm or power in his voice.

that's not even talking about the laughable lyrics (guys, no one has managed to pull off an anti-social media song, please stop trying), or the lame af music video. throwing in what looks like AI art and generic "cyber-security hackerz" stock footage because they couldn't think of anything else, with typos in the lyrics!!!! i really don't want to dump on EvilDead like this; im happy to see these bands kicking around still and i like Annihilation of Civilization, but this is truly an embarrassing display.

The second song is pretty good! The first song is pretty MEH.

I've never heard the old stuff... probably ought to!

I gave each single a couple listens, it actually sounds like they are attempting to channel that more nuanced, early 90s thrash sound that has largely been abandoned by most of the post-revival acts, be it the retro-80s stuff spearheaded by Gama Bomb and Lich King, or the chunkier crossover stuff that Power Trip helped usher in during the 2010s. If it weren't for the rough mixing job, these songs would be excellent, but as is they're pretty good and a nice change of pace from what thrash usually ends up sounding like lately. If the rest of the album is like it and there isn't a better mix on it, this will be a slight step down from United States Of Anarachy.

What would you recommend instead?

Literally fucking ANYthing. Hell, go back to singing about nuclear devastation like the 80s again.

Anything is better than making yourself look like an OLD, DECREPIT and OUT OF TOUCH FOSSIL by bitching about social media and other fake enemies you make up in your rapidly deteriorating brain (not you specifically, I'm talking about EvilDead and any other thrash band coming back from years of inactivity just to write shitty songs about the pandemic and social media).

Young people bitch about this same shit too. 80s nuclear devastation is just recycling hippie sentiment of 'omg the world is gonna end because people are greedy'. Sabbath already did that. Yawn. Shit was boring in the 80s too. In a roundabout way, all the heavy metal music about nuclear war serves as an advertisement for the defense industry. From Sabbath to Sabaton. Slayer to 1914. "War is bad but here buy these cool war songs, t-shirts and backpatches".

As far as social media, people live on their phones. I would expect nothing less lyrically.

I mean these thrash bands, old and modern, flip back and forth between WW3 and pizza/beer songs.

I don't have a problem with the message. It's just that as subject matter for a song, by this point, it's unimaginative and cliched.

And for what it's worth, I would also wager that the guys in Evildead are getting a lot of their anti-lockdown, COVID conspiracy theory 'information' from their own algorithmically-driven news and social media feeds...

That's a safe wager because everybody gets their 'information' from algorithmically-driven news and social media feeds.

complaining about social media is totally valid and correct, but its nearly impossible to do in a song and have it not come off as incredibly lame. Evildead do not have the lyrical chops to potentially change that. its also just very funny that they specifically are calling Gen Z out in their song when they themselves are just as guilty of what theyre complaining about, if not more, because at least Gen Zers are generally aware of the media bubbles they live in.

I feel the same about gore, beer, nuclear war fearmongering, relationships and the environment.

Anybody else starting to suspect that Evil Entity is Phil Flores?

The problem of this band isn't the lyrics, is that the music is terrible.

Seriously though, dude might even have a point but how can you seriously defend Subjugated Souls... easily the worst lyrics I'll ever read all year, at least I hope so. I'm not even from the genZ but they're so cringe it's hard not to answer with 'ok boomer'. And that delivery... yikes.


This entirely. And they're also far from aware of it, given that Rob Alaniz will literally attack you if you were to criticize it on YouTube...

All the broken english lyrics I have heard this year are always far worse, specifically Greek and Italian bands.

Americans bitching about social media? No problem. I recall Destruction trying to bitch about online trolls in a tune called "Second To None" but Schmier's idiotic broken english made it sound like he was praising online trolls. YOU'RE SECOND....TO NONE...THE MONSTROSITY OF LOATHE!

Are you seriously comparing bands, maybe even emergent ones, from countries generally known for speaking terrible English to native speakers from California that have been making music for 40 years? It's not about correct English when they are this dumb. C'mon, who the hell could think putting 'Just another follower, just another meme' and the like as a refrain was a good idea?

And yes, those Destruction lyrics are just as terrible, so? They can be both terrible, who would have guessed? And lo and behold, their age is more or less the same. I was wondering if you were just a die-hard boomer on a crusade against the younger generations, but maybe you're really on Evildead's payroll, it'd be the only explanation

As an ulterior reminder, people usually can overlook the lyrics if the music is good. On musical terms, Toxic Grace is even more atrocious than its lyrics, so that's why people are having a say on them specifically, while I don't recall as many complaints about their first two LPs in this regard.

Listening to the album now. Instrumentally, it's headbangable if a bit boring old school thrash that always stays in the middle of the road. This one and the new Atrophy make for a nice pair if you want to travel back to the late 80s and to a kind of thrash that doesn't want to be as extreme as possible. I also like the detailed Repka pastiche (not the politics though): this is how you preserve the paranoia from the 80s. However, as others have said, the vocals have as much energy as Tom Araya. Between songs. Apologising for the pea in his beard.

However part 2, the current 1 % review on the Archives is a bit over the top, isn't it? Glad the review mentions Coroner. Does the reviewer really think Ron Royce invested that much more energy on "Mental Vortex" and "Grin"? And don't Flores' effect-laden vocals ("Reverie", "Stupid on Parade") remind you of later Coroner?

Also, I don't agree with the complaint concerning the dated nature of the lyrics. In art, there's a place for the specific and ephemeral as well as for the general and eternal. References to today's news create a sense of urgency you don't achieve if you always write about e.g. the unchanging futility of war, man's whereabouts after death or some such. Currently, I'm on a Demon binge, and there's a line in "Through these Eyes" (1987) that reads: "there's an actor in the White House". You only really get the line if you get the reference to Reagan, and if Reagan rears his head, it spreads Cold War anxiety. Both Reagan and the Cold War ended just a couple of years later. Does that mean that the line should have never been written?

Personally, I'd rather read why somebody thinks a text is well-written or not. I think the lyrics to "Subjugated Souls" are a bit too conversational and blunt (but not worse than most other thrash lyrics I know). I prefer Marillion's take on the Generation Z problem: "We stare at our screens / All our lives / What a waste of eyes" ("Interior Lulu", 1999) – what a brilliant segment! But I wouldn't criticise the subject matter itself.

Long story short, I think I'd give a 6 out of 10. Anything between a 5 (indifferent) and a 7 (good) just seems to be more just than a 0.1 out of 10.

The "comparison" stemmed from the fact that The Underworld's often mid-paced, quasi-tech riffing seemed to be cut from a similar cloth, at least imo. Although Mental Vortex is a marvelous album, so I don't get what you're trying to say here.


Well, if you don't see the problems in the excerpt I quoted, without me explicitly writing why I think it's horrible, I don't know what to say.


You answered the question by yourself. I agree on its brilliance, and this was made before smartphones were actually a thing, and, lo and behold, it's still relevant (even more so, I'd add). The Demon quote, if it's just that single line, with a bit of mental masturbation, can also be applied to Trump in a literal way, or to anyone so incompetent it seems he's playing as an "actor" in a figurative way – not with the same impactful meaning, of course, but meaningful lyrics can stay relevant even if those times are past. Explicitly attacking the generation Z and their memes seems a bit different. Not to mention, you're not comparing the historical significance of the Cold War to the social media, aren't you?


Well, this is my rating and I think it's fair. Feel free to write yours and I'm looking forward to read other takes on it. Thanks for reading it anyways!

well... i haven't listen to this yet, just youtube preview, and if I would put a 1% on something that would not be on a metal release, probably something like pop music or even worst production by a solo guy with a computer and a few keyboard doing his own concept album on whatever subject found after a hard night drinking perfume and gazoline.

or maybe I'd keep that for something I can't stand, just like Korn or something, that would be unfair but subjective answer

now I read some of your review and find divergente opinions, like High Command to me is better than this disapointing Sovereign album. But for Enforced I'm joining you. Again Terrodome... if this got 70% from you I'd expect a better rating for Evildead, this terrordome is a boring repetition of someone else work. Conclusion i understand one could find this boring but 1% isn't a fair move imo.

Sorry man but that's just objectively wrong. We are on a metal site, we're reviewing metal albums, so pop is already out of the equation (not to mention, listening to some pop instead of this would have made me feel much better). The conviction that all metal, by default, is better than anything else just because it's metal is extremely narrow-minded and I thought we were over it in 2024. In any case, as far as metal goes, this is up among the worst experiences I've had recently, so the score is a consequence of that. Not just for the dull music but for everything surrounding it, which I have discussed at length in the review, although I would understand if somebody were to stop at the rating and not get to the end of that long-winded wall of text alive.


Forgive me man, but these are not diverging opinions, these are my coherent (or wannabe so) opinions that diverge from yours (which is natural). This is extremely different. I'd be more willing to replay the 3-4 cuts from Terrordome I liked, than that competent, but tedious High Command album, and especially more than this incompetent, washed-up Evildead trash. My ratings reflect that. I'm not presuming to speak on behalf of everyone, that's for sure. I still appreciate you taking the time to read them, unless you were doing it just for the explicit purpose of proving me wrong on God knows why.

i don't need to prove, I'm just saying 1 is far far faaaaaaar from 70, it's not logical, so that's a mood rating
the longer of your review by itself say it's not 1
even for under average stuff I would go to 50 or 30%

and yes divergente from mine, that's what I wished to say - but my english is too short for correct discussion and whatever i can do I'll missed the point (web is by hardware or software english speaking right, we got no or low power on there)

To my ears, there are many parts where the vocals are similar to those of Royce, yet you don't seem to criticise Coroner. Royce seems to be ok but Flores is not. That's what I don't get.



Me neither because you can't really agree or disagree if you don't know where somebody is coming from. Is it the explicitness or bluntness that irks you? (Well, most thrash lyrics are blunt.) Is it the use of buzzwords or technical terms ("hashtag", "follower", "meme", "algorythms", "social media", "platform", "scroll")? If yes, why? Those cold catalogues of buzzwords or technical terms could be taken as a simulation of information overkill or sensory overload; the form mirrors the content. Admittedly, their navel-gazing analysis of online lives and gradual zombiefication isn't very deep but the same could be said about most metal lyrics.



Why? Conventionally, all art has a symbolic or figurative layer in addition to the verbatim layer or some explicit reference to historical events. According to the great philosopher Evildead, one of today's media-psychological irritants is "memes" and such. Maybe, in ten years time, it's something else – but the inherent problem will be the same: there's something that can distract you from "real life" (= "the streets" in the lyrics) like an addiction. In that future, you'll probably read Evildead's "memes" metaphorically and apply them to the then current distractor.



Of course not. I just think there's room for the smaller problems as well. One novel deals with a World War, the other one deals with the difficulties in finding an affordable appartment (invented example) – and why not?



The problem is: Even if I wanted to write a review, it would be impossible to raise the overall score to a decent level when there's a 1 % rating in the mix. Are you sure that rating isn't entirely based on some kind of personal feud? If you genuinely think this is a 1 % album – how would you rate e.g. a repackaged album that is only released as a money grab? Such repackaged stuff that gets released while the originals are still available, without input or consent of the original artists, is the lowest of the low in my book. Is "Toxic Grace" as devoid of artistic merit as some record label's money grab?

Just ask autothrall, he's great at destroying low effort compilations.

Man, I wasn't aiming to make any new friends with that review, but you're taking it too far. Anyway:


I don't hear it, but to each their own, Anyways, I'm not criticizing Coroner because I'm not reviewing Coroner...? And second, call me when you hear something in Toxic Grace that could be considered even remotely as good as what Coroner wrote. Even if Royce's vocals were this subpar (they aren't imo, but apparently we hear different things), I don't think I need to explain why they would be way easier to overlook, right? I'm surprised we're having this conversation altogether. It's supreme nitpicking taking things out of their respective contexts. I don't get it.


Again, I answered something similar before. I don't care at all that there might be something as bad, or worse. I don't care! I'm reviewing this album, I found these specific lyrics horrible, I'm commenting about those. Italian bands write in a terrible English so they're worse? (as another user wrote before) There are other bad lyrics? So what? I'm not talking about those albums. Jeez. And no, it's not the bluntness. They're just terribly unimaginative in my opinion.


In the future, I hope to never hear a single note from this album again. More seriously, I strongly doubt it, but we'll see who was right when the time comes, I guess.


That's indisputable. But between a young man genuinely worried for the Cold War and a middle-aged man spewing "get off my lawn"-stereotypes about the whole young generation, one is also allowed to give a different weight to those two scenarios, right?


Maybe I'm gonna repeat myself, but what the hell does it have to do with anything? It's not the focus of my review. My experience with this album was strongly negative. That's it. I also answered this before, so I'm not gonna comment further. And I won't allow anybody on the internet who doesn't even know me personally to question my honesty, that's for sure. Learn to respect other people's opinions, I guess?

Haven't heard the album yet, but the lyrics of that "Subjugated Souls" song could be worse than they are... pretty standard stupid shit about social media. Maybe not entirely wrong, but it has the air of "the kids are bad now, we were right about everything," which isn't really very interesting. Like said above you can't really expect genius level analysis. It's just tiresome to keep reading these old dudes' opinions which are all so shallow. But so it goes.

I'd love to see some actually good lyrics about how corporate forces eroded a lot of society and lead to the conditions they're talking about, but a bunch of 50 year old dudes reuniting for a comeback thrash album just aren't ever going to get there.

And in general if your whole point is just "these kids suck now" then it's a dumb thing to say... I'm not that old, but I see the generation behind me protesting on college campuses and fighting climate change in whatever ways and I think the kids are doing great.

sorry but i have met noone to claim capitalism's harrasment in metal music industry, noone to blame labels for selling this high and that low because of popularity, i've met noone agreing with me about vinyl collection speculative way, noone is complaining about amazon thiefs, selling there with no question, everyone is actually on social media and other platform....

years or even decades ago metal scene claimed that it was all about fictionnal lyrics, just for now it's art not politic, so yes this lyrics are fictionnal, no real revolution, no strike, norvegian BM show the limits of fiction/real, as well for Kreator with words of strike and of hate that comes for what? for revolution? nop! just for the cool attitude of it, for business.

metal going that way is fun, it's at best some catharsys, but it is not punk music, not hardcore stuff, not underground scene
so yes Evildead is one of them, a bit "young", but again there's thousands worst - and hopefully a thousand best!

just one, last Kerry King LP, lyrics ? how's it social fight when stucked in show business in LA ?

I liked "FAFO" but the back half of the album has a huge drop in energy. "Fear Porn" does not save it.

I like Juan Garcia (Agent Steel, Body Count) but he's sorta being wasted here. Compare this to the ferocity of new Kerry King and you could fall asleep.

i speak of lyrics =)

previous Evildead have a bit of tired sound, actually vinyl pressing isn't good, why is this album selling 50/100euro on discogs is a real mystery to me

i'm not in use with % but I could try, without review, with (I had this one with Darkness aswell and with Xentrix for I'd give 75/80) maybe 65 or 70% at very best - then for the new one I can not say cause I'm awaiting delivery in july, but if it is that bad it could be a bit less or even going to 50 or 40 for a very boring one

"this is metal forum" won't work to me, I am not a fan of some genre and some metal give me headache but I'd go to 20/30, maybe 10 if i'm really really shocked, I'd keep under for "metal" stuff which not metal like popmetal (I don't know blinkwhatever or stuff like that) or simply popmusic

but I won't discuss that far more, i just think it's unfair but here it is, no big deal

Missed your comment. Aaaand here it goes another one. You really can't accept other people's opinions on stuff, right?


Never once I wrote something even similar to that. Stop putting words in my mouth.

[EDIT: went back to it just to be sure. Abysmal vocals, dull drumming, bland riffs, decent at best solos, stupid attitude, and a grand total of ONE song I don't have the desire to stop halfway through and never listen to it again. Yeah, that surely deserves a higher rating.]


That's the beauty of opinions, isn't it?! The system allows ratings from 0 to 100 and, as far as I know, none of them is forbidden.


Couldn't agree more with both.

i'm saying I'm surprised, I'm telling you why, ain't that you going mad for this? or maybe your opinion is far ahead others ?

some got a strange way of discussion, its not a fight man, its a dialog and this is made of two at least

You said my rating did not reflect the review content. I replied by saying it does, and brought evidence for it. I still have a long way before I get mad, don't worry.


My opinion counts exactly like everyone else's. That's why I'd never accuse anyone of dishonesty when doing what is essentially a hobby like writing reviews on an internet site. In an ideal world, I'd expect to be treated the same way. Nothing more, nothing less.

Anyways, all this discussion is just the umpteenth case of someone fixating themselves on that little number on the top, instead of the review itself. Nothing new under the sun.