Label: Napalm Records
Release date: April 1, 2022
Production: Evil Invaders
Album length: 42:59 min
Genre: Thrash Metal/Speed Metal Revival
Rating: 9.0/10
Evil Invaders are Belgian thrash and speed metal revivalists who dropped their third studio album, “Shattering Reflection,” this April. Five years have passed since their last studio outing, which is a long stretch for a band that’s only been around since 2007. The new record confirms that Evil Invaders are on the rise. The debut “Pulses Of Pleasure” (2015) showed the band had huge potential, the second album “Feed My Violence” (2017) made good on it, and now here’s the third and latest, which is by far their most focused, mature and polished work to date. Everything that let Evil Invaders ‘set a heavy-steel-hungry crowd on fire’ on the first two albums is back. And then some. On the new record it’s even more front and center, blown up to magnificent proportions. Put simply, “Shattering Reflection” is another hell-spiked boot straight to the teeth.
The band stays true to the revivalism of metal’s golden days, when old-school speed metal flourished especially in the US and the lively Bay Area thrash movement sprang up. “Shattering Reflection” holds on to an ominous, fiercely aggressive stance, and Evil Invaders don’t let up for a single second of its crushing 43 minutes of mayhem. Not even for a moment. Amid the ruinous snarl of the guitar buzzsaws, the cannon-fire barrage of the drums, the ripping bass lines and the bestial vocals, Evil Invaders also manage to impress with just the right amount of musical moments. Passages with guitar embellishments strike a balanced contrast to the otherwise wrecking-ball relentlessness, and the band also stuns with remarkable control on those parts of the record where the unstoppable surge in speed is really put on display.
“Shattering Reflection” is a wonderfully successful blend of thrash and speed metal elements and a new triumphant chapter in the story of a band that keenly and with incredible dedication hones its sound, committed to the kind of jagged, uncompromising devastation that old-school eighties metal revivalism can deliver today. A very important factor is Joe’s vocals, which improve from album to album. Especially when it comes to the parts where he leans on ‘clean’ singing. At times it’s even a bit of a laugh. I’m thinking of the screams in the vein of Jon Oliva on the Savatage classic Hall of the Mountain King, in the middle of the opener Hissing In Crescendo. The guy hits extreme heights that at times rival only the poisonous vocals of the likes of King Diamond, Midnght (Crimson Glory) or John Cyriis (Agent Steel). On that front, the band at times stands comparison with the likes of Crimson Glory, early Savatage, Razor, Metal Church, Liege Lord, Agent Steel too, and at moments even Mercyful Fate (especially thanks to some of Joe’s vocal moves in the song My Word). One of the greatest feats of inspired songwriting is the dark, almost seven-minute closing epic The Circle, where the elements I just cited are subtly arranged and weave together in an especially tight way across the track.
The album also has a smartly thought-out track order. The aggressive moments are occasionally ‘softened’ with a bigger dose of musicality. That job falls to the third and fifth tracks on the album. These are the dark heavy metal ballads In Deepest Black and Forgotten Memories, where Joe shows a great deal of vocal maturity compared to the band’s previous two records. The shorter instrumental Aeon, just before the end of the album, serves a similar purpose. But by and large, your neck vertebrae will stay in harm’s way on the new Evil Invaders album too, and the more delicate souls out there might even end up bleeding from the eardrums. Evil Invaders’ gallop through avalanches of rage, aggression and speed, as showcased by the phenomenal Eternal Darkness, Sledghammer Justice and/or the already mentioned opener Hissing In Crescendo, is downright ‘charming’.
“Shattering Reflection” is a polished piece of work. Evil Invaders have honed the album’s tracks to a pleasing peak. Over the years it may turn out that “Shattering Reflection” is in fact the band’s breakthrough album. Even though it’s only their third, it’s got everything it takes to grow into the most prominent and important album of Evil Invaders’ career. The band bursts with drive, and all the hellish madness radiating from the album’s energy has found a home on it.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Hissing In Crescendo
2. Die For Me
3. In Deepest Black
4. Sledgehammer Justice
6. Forgotten Memories
7. Realm of Shadows
8. Eternal Darkness
9. My World
10. Aeon
11. The Circle
Lineup:
Joe – vocals & guitar
Max – guitar
Joeri – bass
Senne Jacobs – drums
