Review by Sonny for Evil (JAP) - Possessed by Evil (2021)

Possessed by Evil is four-piece, Japanese blackened thrashers Evil's second full-length, following 2017's debut Rites of Evil. Here the band tear through it's twelve tracks in a fretboard shredding 36 minutes and the riffs are cranked out at a blistering pace and the soloing is frenetic. Ryo Asura's vocals for the most part resemble a dobermann's bark, at least until he unleashes one of his ear-piercing screams that is! The album isn't completely monochromatic however - Raizin has a rock 'n' roll groove to it, the short track The Gate of Hell is a plodding instrumental affair with a killer solo, Bottom of Hell has a quite bouncy groove to it and Enmaten's riff could have been written by Bad Brains. However, the majority is breakneck blackened thrash metal riffage - a track like Hell's Evil Bells could easily grace a latter day Darkthrone album without raising too many eyebrows. Not a bad effort at all, Evil are as evil-sounding as they need to be to convince and have sufficient variety within the tracklisting to remain interesting for the album's brief-ish running time. Energetic and invigorating thrashing - not top drawer for sure, but solid enough and worth a spin or two.