Evildead - Toxic Grace

Angry Metal Guy 30

Though Evildead has existed since the late ’80s, most people recognize them by founding member and guitarist, Juan Garcia. After leaving Agent Steel in 1987 (and before his return in 1998), Garcia conceived a thrash outfit in Evildead. Though, many have asked, “why?” Unfortunately, the band never shared the same success as Agent Steel, partly due to the mediocre riffs and lackluster production of early albums Annihilation of Civilization and The Underworld. Not to mention the cringy lyrics that ranged from the environmental crisis, crime rate, and Middle Eastern developments of the time. After these two albums, Garcia returned to Agent Steel, only to leave again to surprisingly and unnecessarily reform Evildead with longtime vocalist, Phil Flores. They pushed the ’80s thrash scene back into our faces in 2020 with United States of Anarchy, and now they’re back with this year’s Toxic Grace.

Twenty-twenty’s United States of Anarchy picked up right where the band left off, continuing to deliver mid-tier West Coast thrash. Tossing aside any new ideas or modernization, the one-dimensional vocal style they’ve continued to utilize is, at times, just talking rather than singing in a classic thrash rasp or grunt. Unfortunately, this is one of the issues I (and many others) have with the band. With the debut record and comeback, you’ll find some vocal energy. However, subsequent albums lack the energy necessary to strengthen the weaker songs. Unfortunately, the same has happened in the case of Toxic Grace. The vocals and energy show up in some of the tracks, but many could—quite honestly—have gone without vocals entirely. This unfortunate circumstance makes the two-minute instrumental, “World ov Rats,” the best song on the record.

Toxic Grace by Evildead

But in the vocalist’s defense, there’s not a lot of excitement when “singing” lyrics like this: “Posting something cool your number one priority / Platform steals your info, and your identity / It makes no difference to you with one million following / The Subjugated Souls from generation Z”. These poetic passages are but a few of the many cringy lyrics you can find in “Subjugated Souls.” Yet, somehow, it’s worse in the five-plus-minute track, “Bathe in Fire.” Using spooky guitar work and low, mostly spoken vocals, the song comes off like a bad King Diamond track. Not to mention, there are moments when they take the darkness further and unleash a forced death metal effort that sounds like something Autopsy tossed on the studio floor. “Stupid on Parade” has potential if its building introduction actually erupted into something headbang-worthy. Instead, the transition is equivalent to a teenage girl getting her boyfriend alone for the first time, only for him to bust his nut in two seconds. Not to mention that the “vocals” feel like that time Jon Schaffer lectured me when I listened to Sons of Liberty.

The better tracks on the album (outside the aforementioned instrumental) are “Raising Fresh Hell” and the bookends, “F.A.F.O.” and “Fear Porn.” I know what you’re thinking. How can a song called “Fear Porn” be one of the best songs on the album? Well, for better or worse, it is because it has the best riffs on the record. Even if the lyrics in the chorus are dreadful. The opener does a decent job of getting the album off the ground. So, I’ll give it some credit as the limited vocal style actually works well to emphasize the downstrokes and bass kicks—even if it doesn’t fluctuate much from the direction it takes throughout its three-and-a-half runtime. “Raising Fresh Hell” mixes a pleasant mid-paced, Exodus riff with an Annihilator-like chorus that at least keeps things interesting. And, though the backing vocals are weak sauce, the dual guitar work on the back end mixes things up nicely.

Having been around on and off for nearly four decades, the band has added a fourth full-length to their catalog. While they had some energy in the old days, it feels like it was completely squished out of them in the recording process of Toxic Grace. Each song (minus the bloated, meandering “Subjugated Souls”) follows the tired intro-verse-chorus-solo-verse-chorus-end structure, and rarely do we find a solo that’s anything better than mid. The only times the vocals shine occur in “Stupid in Parade” and “Fear Porn.” The former comes in the form of some clean vocals toward the end of the song—that work pretty damn well. Whereas the vocals on “Fear Porn” deliver a classic, vocal-chord assault. Though I can support the band for being one of the OGs of its time, Evildead is showing its age by continuing to venture down a path that the more successful thrashers have expanded on or abandoned entirely.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: Stream Stuff | Format Reviewed: Look Left
Label: Steamhammer Records
Websites: evil-dead.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/evildead.official
Releases Worldwide: May 24th, 2024

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