Evol Intent

Evol Intent's Album "Era Of Diversion" was released in 2008 but I just became aware of it last week. If you like your Drum and Bass on the dark and heavy side, this album was made for you. This CD begins with an introduction of a narrator telling us how life has become hell on earth, with references to over consumption which has made us complacent. The solution...get mad. This morphs into the first track with samples of George Bush's speech about why terrorists hate us, "Because of our freedom." At the very end of this sample a haunting voice proclaims "Go to sleep America, We have everything under control." We are then forcefully ripped out of our post 9-11 slumber by 71 minutes of relentless aural assault.
While some tracks start out with a calm-before-the -storm, trancy vibe, they quickly devolve into the sound of hell crashing into hell. There are a couple of old school jump up references that Evol also manage to rip the support out from under and cast them into utter chaos. Most of my favorite tracks on this album tap into hip hop for the vocal tracks. Serious attention should be paid to the tracks "Death, Lies and Videotape", "Odd Number" and "Reality Check" which uses a sample from N.W.A.'s song "Protest." N.W.A. + D&B = Good. The track immediately following "Reality Check", entitled "Smoke and Mirrors" flips the script to the hardest hardcore punk / metal / D&B track ever to grace my eardrums. It is about as subtle as a gunshot to the head. Not many female vocal tracks on this album but Evol does deliver with the track "Middle of the Night." The track begins subtly but the crescendo launches you into the stratosphere. My only regret is that this track is not the last on the album. The slow come down and references to sleep are powerful reminders that Evol Intent will be controlling my nightmares for years to come. Evol never sounded so good!