

Article by George Psalmanazar.

Evil were a Danish metal band from the mid 1980s often held up as yet another “lost gem” by record collectors as their sole studio release, the Evil’s Message EP, has never been reissued except for a hard to find, bargain basement compilation with French heavy metal band Sortilège’s self-titled EP in the late 90s. Evil’s Message is far from actually being good though; it is nothing special, bog standard Motorhead and Metallica style speed metal.

Evil’s riffing is a combination of static speed metal triplets and New Wave of British Heavy Metal gallops. Leads attempt to echo Iron Maiden‘s epic, triumphal atmosphere but fail hard due to being placed in idiotic songs like “Take Good Care of Your Balls”. The songs on Evil’s Message uniformly do not progress forward like Motorhead and Metallica’s better compositions do; Evil’s compositions just drone on until it is time for a new catchy lead harmony like a lame rock song and eventually the band just runs out of steam as the guitarists have both spent all their loads. All the songs are overlong and boring upon repeated listening or too many spins while commuting.

Evil is yet another band who while competent musicians, did not become successful for good reason: they weren’t exceptional. Evil were just another middling heavy/speed metal band in the mid 80s with rare records that were never reprinted as there was no demand as the band just wasn’t very good. Evil’s Message is not worth hunting down and certainly isn’t worth paying more than a few dollars for out of a used CD bin if you crave some aggressive heavy metal to headbang to in your car without thinking about. That is about all Evil is good for: car metal. Let obsessive compulsives and hipsters masturbate to their beat up vinyl copies alone.

Tags: 1984, car metal, Denmark, evil, evil's message, Heavy Metal, review, Speed Metal