{"id":103866,"date":"2024-09-06T00:00:55","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T23:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=103866"},"modified":"2024-09-12T13:31:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T12:31:12","slug":"album-review-castle-evil-remains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-castle-evil-remains\/","title":{"rendered":"CASTLE – Evil Remains (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

CASTLE
Evil Remains<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nHammerheart (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Way back in the early 90s I was entranced by the mysterious Netherlands death-doom quintet Castle. Unfortunately, Evil Remains<\/em> is not the work of that particular act but I wanted to shoehorn them into this review in the hope that someone out there will follow my recommendation, and also not get them mixed up with a few other acts of the same name.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Evil Remains<\/em> is the sixth full-length outing from the twosome of Elizabeth Blackwell (vocals and bass) and Mat Davis (guitar) who formed in 2009, from San Francisco, California and Toronto, Ontario respectively. While not a brutally loyal customer of their music, I did speak highly of their 2018 opus Deal Thy Fate<\/em> which boasted some interesting Slayer<\/a>-esque nods and plods. I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s been that long since Castle released a full-length. Although not a great deal has changed, the duo still offers up plenty of mid-tempo gloominess epitomised by the ghoulish cover art.<\/p>\n

Evil Remains<\/em> is reasonably atmospheric in its stodge if generic, but it entertains all the same as \u2018Queen Of Death\u2019 lumbers forlornly on trudging riffs which creak like black wings of impending doom as they anchor to the dual vocal delivery. Moodily aligned and nostalgically bewitching, this album never strays from its initial set up of rolling doom which is rooted with the likes of Pentagram, Saint Vitus and of course Black Sabbath<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is relatively simplistic material, although when the band veers into a faster style it\u2019s far more hypnotic, as showcased with the latter stages of \u2018Nosferatu Nights\u2019. Elsewhere, \u2018Deja Voodoo\u2019 begins with stark chords before again those Sabbath-styled monoliths hit like grey waves \u2019neath leaden skies. It\u2019s steady stuff, stormy in guise and yet too raw to be haunting. The title track is very doomy heavy metal of more contemporary design; fluid and effortless but rarely striking with any sort of menace, although the drums pack quite a wallop.<\/p>\n

At their fullest, Castle churn out a track like \u2018Black Spell\u2019; a rigorous and tight heavy roller hinting at The Obsessed with oily riffs which leak from some back alley biker bar, stinking of leather, piss and warm beer.<\/p>\n

The leads of Davis are of note throughout, particularly on the melodic \u2018Cold Grave\u2019 as flashes of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal entwine with echoes of doom. And that\u2019s where this album sits, somewhat underwhelming but maintaining enough steady grooves to comfort as the dull clouds gather above.<\/p>\n

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

CASTLEEvil Remains Hammerheart (2024)Rating: 7\/10 Way back in the early 90s I was entranced by the mysterious Netherlands death-doom quintet Castle. Unfortunately, Evil Remains is not the work of that particular act but I wanted to shoehorn them into this review in the hope that someone out there will follow my recommendation, and also not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5777],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-castle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103866","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=103866"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103873,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103866\/revisions\/103873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}