EVIL MACHINE - War In Heaven (ARACHNOPHOBIA Records - CD 2013)
Here we celebrate two debuts: one of Arachnophobia
Records and second of the band called Evil Machine. The latter has been formed
by Cyjan from Dead Infection, who was supported by Hal (Vader, Abused Majesty,
Hermh) and Cyprian (Hate, Pyorrhoea). They worked long to get their debut CD done…
the whole process must have been a struggle for the band, as it took them about
seven years to record “War in Heaven”. Luckily for us the band had enough
determination to finish it and now we can finally listen to Evil Machine… I
guess it is also very important to mention that the band invited some great
guest musicians to leave their trace on their music, what certainly spiced up
the entire album and made it even more interesting. And I can admit that now,
when I’ve listened to “War in Heaven” about 20 times, I really fuckin like this
album a lot.
I do admit though that my first impression was
just mediocre. I guess I expected to hear slightly different kind of music;
considering the band’s name, the artwork for the album, band’s photos and
everything around it I actually thought it will be truly fast, uncompromising,
evil and utterly bestial war metal. Meanwhile “War in Heaven” is slightly
different and stylistically it is a pure worship of the traditional metal of
death, thrash and black, mainly influenced by the cult records from the 80’s.
If I mention here such classic bands as Hellhammer, Samael, Venom, (early)
Sodom and Kreator, Rotting Christ, Varathron, with some Australian bands, then
you may have some idea about the music of Evil Machine with its archaic riffs,
mainly slow or mid paced tempo (you’ll find fast blasting tempo only couple of
times like in killer “Cross Meant Death”), ghoulish vocals, obscure, evil atmosphere
and that feeling, passion...
And as I mentioned on the first listen I wasn’t
much impressed… hmm, maybe I didn’t pay enough attention, but with every next
listen this music grew on me and now I am able to worship it. Evil Machine
really did awesome job here, composed several killer tracks, arranged them
perfectly and with the diversity of the music plus with some killer surprises,
“War in Heaven” is just an essential album. That diversity may actually be one
of the stronger factors of Evil Machine. There are songs, which are close to
Hellhammer, some other are more like old, archaic thrash and finally there’re
also moments, which personally remind me the old Greek scene. Arrghhh, just listen
to the song called “Diabeł” – it is probably my favourite track from “War in
Heaven”, quite different to the rest of the material, but with such a malignant
atmosphere, some awesome riffs and most importantly with great guest vocals of
Cezar from the almighty Christ Agony. Another songs, which I just must
recommend are “Four Demons of Apocalypse”, “Cross Meant Death”, “Bloody
Emperor”, “Jerusodoma” and finally also “Evil Machine”… Each offers something
truly awesome and has something characteristic, if not a riff, which will make
you bang your head like crazy then it is a memorable chorus. But really, every
song here is damn good and with two covers (of which I especially like the
vicious version of old Onslaught classic) it turns out that “War in Heaven” is
close to… I don’t want to say perfection, because it’s not “To Mega Therion”,
but for me it nailed this kind of music brilliantly and if after listening to
it I still have some songs massacring the guts inside me then it means this is
a more than just a good album. Recommended!
Standout tracks: “Diabeł”, “Four Demons of
Apocalypse”, “Cross Meant Death”, “Bloody Emperor”, “Jerusodoma”
Final rate: 80/100
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