{"id":103293,"date":"2024-05-24T00:00:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T23:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=103293"},"modified":"2024-05-28T13:13:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:13:30","slug":"album-review-evildead-toxic-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-evildead-toxic-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"EVILDEAD – Toxic Grace (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

EVILDEAD
Toxic Grace<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSteamhammer (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 4.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s kind of weird that US thrashers EvilDead, who enjoyed a degree of mild success in the 80s and early 90s, released an album, United States Of Anarchy<\/em>, in 2020. Swept away in the tides of the Covid pandemic, the return of the Los Angeles, California-based band was barely a whimper, but here they are again gracing us with their presence for their fourth full-length studio album and sadly this too is underwhelming, and not because of a global panic.<\/p>\n

EvilDead, like a lot of bands returning to the fray, just don\u2019t have the energy, the ideas and, in this case, the power or the lyrics to contend with any of today\u2019s classier acts. Sure, it\u2019s cool that the line-up consists of members from the late 80s \u2013 founding member and guitarist Juan Garcia (Body Count \/ ex-Abattoir \/ ex-Agent Steel), vocalist Phil Flores, guitarist Albert Gonzalez (Anger As Art), drummer Rob Alaniz, and bassist Karlos Medina (ex-Agent Steel), who joined in 1990 \u2013 but I\u2019d expect a hell of a lot more from such an experienced tribe.<\/p>\n

Now, EvilDead where never Shakespearean wordsmiths, but when you read the lyrics to songs like \u2018Subjugated Souls\u2019 and \u2018Raising Fresh Hell\u2019 you might think that a teenager is behind such cheese. Thankfully, some of the riffs throughout the album are decent, but there\u2019s just no consistency on board let alone potency. The vocals appear as half-hearted narration at times, and then you get hit by \u2018Bathe In Fire\u2019 where the band makes a complete u-turn by marrying a King Diamond-style of spooky prowess fused with Death.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no real sense in it and the band just seems lost as they announce a return riddled with holes. There\u2019s awful lyrics on \u2018Fear Porn\u2019 but the song has a solid riff and better vocals, and \u2018Stupid On Parade\u2019 builds well and chugs nicely but the vocals are weak. Meanwhile, the short instrumental \u2018World Ov Rats\u2019 is actually half decent.<\/p>\n

I played this album to severed friends of mine who were all 80s thrashers who liked EvilDead, and they all raised the same issues. I\u2019m sure many of the old fans will welcome Toxic Grace as being an \u201cawesome return\u201d just through nostalgia, but there\u2019s absolutely nothing here that tells me that EvilDead have risen to take over the thrash league. In fact, with this release they\u2019ve gone from mid-tier stalwarts to lower league veterans on their last legs.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EVILDEADToxic Grace Steamhammer (2024)Rating: 4.5\/10 It\u2019s kind of weird that US thrashers EvilDead, who enjoyed a degree of mild success in the 80s and early 90s, released an album, United States Of Anarchy, in 2020. Swept away in the tides of the Covid pandemic, the return of the Los Angeles, California-based band was barely a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5696],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-evildead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103294,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103293\/revisions\/103294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}