Band:	Evile
Album:	Five Serpent's Teeth
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	September 2011

01. Five Serpent's Teeth
02. In Dreams Of Terror
03. Cult
04. Eternal Empire
05. Xaraya
06. Origin Of Oblivion
07. Centurion
08. In Memoriam
09. Descent Into Madness
10. Long Live New Flesh

2011 has been pretty decent to this whole thrash revival thing. Havok's album has been mashing the fuck out of my neck for a while now, as has Diamond Plate's, SSS's, and especially Toxic Holocaust's. Now Evile, easily one of the more popular bands of the thrash resurgence, has claimed its slice of this shit-wrecking year with Five Serpent's Teeth. Thing is, compared to those from the bands mentioned above, said slice seems really, really, really measly.

And I have an idea why that is. Fun! Uniqueness! Thrashy brashness! Evile never really captures any of the above in Teeth. Looking at the thrash (and crossover) albums I've loved this year, Time Is Up has its 5th-graders-under-the-monkey-bars-melting-then-shooting-up-rock-candy manic riff assaults, Conjure & Command has its old becancered John Wayne levels of grit, Problems To The Answer has its lightness and fun, blah, blah, etc. What I mean is the bands responsible all make me want to listen to them for their music, not for faux-nostalgic purposes. The serpents here, on the other hand, have their heads so far up the big classic thrash band's asses (particularly Justice-era Metallica's on this) that when I put this on, I'm immediately overcome by the urge to listen to Metallica, not Evile. The whole thing sounds forced--it feels more constrained by its influences than anything and it lacks the rawness and the energy that makes good thrash so goddamned fun.

All that said, Teeth really isn't all that bad either. Luckily I took my usual perfunctory, half-assed notes during my first listen to share, unedited, with you here:

-Decent riffing, fucking decent soloing, decent drumming, decent Hettfield-esque vocals, decentish production, extra decent and touching song "In Memoriam" for Mike Alexander, decent etc.

And I'll stick to all of the above. Teeth seems, after a cursory listen, decent. But it lacks not just an x-factor, but x-factors (that's a plural, asshole). I don't want to drink and trash Best Western rooms to it and nothing about it seems all that fresh or brash. It sounds like thrash, but it never quite feels like it. The whole thing sounds tame?neuter, even. And yeah, in my always humble, disagree and you'll need to gtfo opinion, in this way too it's like ?And Justice For All. Just without the whole unique factor and the potential to, you know, influence.

Gets a solid 4.25 yawns out of 5 from me.

Tracks that don't suck: "In Memoriam" and "Cult"