Evil Drive – The Land of the Dead

Blasting out of Finland Evil Drive deliver a curious mix of Metal influences on this debut effort. Playing Thrash and bordering on Death metal in places but with tons of melody.

Opening track “World Cleaners” has an awesome melody running through it. “Bullet” continues with a shredding verse leading to a bouncy chorus and an awesome melodic twin solo. The album is very palatable, the songs have heavy parts but are written in a classic style. All through the album I hear riffs that echo Megadeth and Carcass with some great Maiden twin leads and while Vocalist Viktoria Viren mainly concentrates on a raspy scream if you take a track like “No Way in the Lie”  a slow ballad where she shows she is more then capable at clean vocals and while she reverts back to screaming when the track kicks in, if she sung the chorus you would be forgiven for thinking this was a Dio cover.

With crystal clear production and highly skilled musicianship the band has stacks of potential. There are hooks and melodies aplenty the stars on the album are the Twin Guitar team of Ville Wiren and Niko Huusari. The frustrating thing about this band and the album is what’s good about them is exactly what can work against them. The harsh vocals aren’t always suited to the melodic music. Sometimes they cancel each other out rather than blend and not that it’s the bands fault or problem but they walk that awkward line where they are straight down the middle on a lot of areas of their sound. They could fall into that trap where they are too heavy for some but not heavy enough for others. But with tracks like “Iron Rain” and “War” they can’t go far wrong. So long as they work on a more distinctive sound the possibilities are endless.

Tracklist

Intro
World Cleaners
Bullet
War
Screaming Soul
No Way In The Lie
The Land of The Dead
Iron Rain
Lost Forever

Band Members

Viktoria Viren – Vocals
Ville Wiren – Guitar
Niko Huusari – Guitar
Juha Beck – Drums
Marko Syrjala – Bass

Release Date

22 January 2016 via Mighty Music

Score 7/10