Eville have come to be regulars here at Aural Aggravation. We rate them highly, and we rate their latest single, ‘No Pictures Please’, from their forthcoming debut EP Brat Metal, out next month. Check it here:
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Posts Tagged ‘brat metal’
Eville – Get With Me
Posted: 12 May 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPsTags: brat metal, Eville, Filter, Get With Me, Grunge, Heavy, nu-metal, Review, Riff, Single
9th May 2025
Christopher Nosnibor
Sometimes, when a band has forged its sound with the assistance of quality producers, there’s a niggle of concern when they decide to go it alone. Why are they doing this? Why now? Have they become overconfident in their abilities?
Eva Sheldrake explains the decision: “We’ve worked with incredible producers, and we’ve taken so much from every experience, but with Get With Me, it all came together so naturally that we knew Jude had to produce it. We caught lightning in a bottle—the energy is real, it’s raw, and it’s straight from the heart. The song channels something a lot of women go through but don’t always get the space to talk about. Instead of letting it fester, we flipped it on its head and made it ours. It’s fierce, it’s defiant, and it’s exactly what Eville stands for.”
The fact that it was simply something that happened, that felt right, matters, and that’s significant. More significant, though, is the fact that there was simply no cause for concern, as they’ve absolutely mastered the sound they’re after here. The track dives in with the fattest, filthiest bass grind, and then the guitar is a dense wall of distortion, and then Eva’s vocals are sassy but keenly melodic, and there are layers of harmony in the mix and once again, they’ve mined solid gold. Balancing crunching juggernaut grungy / nu-metal riffery – something about both the sound and structure of the musical elements are reminiscent of Filter here – with a pop sensibility which comes through in the vocals, ‘Get With Me’ has got the lot.
And if the title suggests some kind of schmaltzy romantic allure, think again. This is Eville, and they are not to be fucked with. The mid-section brings all the grunt and threatening fists like a menacing bodyguard looming forward, before the full-throttle finish. The message of ‘Get With Me’ is really ‘get real’ – and it’s driven home hard , with brutal force. Yep, Eville have done it again….
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Eville – Ballistic
Posted: 15 November 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPsTags: anger, Ballistic, brat metal, Cunts, Eville, Feminism, Misogyny, nu-metal, Rage, raw, Sexism, Single Review
15th November 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
“Do not tell me to smile / I’m feeling volatile,” Eva Sheldrake warns menacingly against a dense, churning chug of overdriven, distorted guitar. Sporting a pink bikini but wielding a baseball bat, you can sense things are about to kick off. And oh boy, do they kick off.
Eville have balanced fire and fury and dense nu-metal guitars with killer hooks and keen melodies from day one, and ‘Messy’ represented a peak in terms of their accessible but hard brat metal stylings, but something has happened here.
Eva’s clearly the band focal point, and as the vocalist and lyricist, to some extent sets the agenda, and on the evidence of ‘Ballistic’, she’s reached her limit and she’s calling it out on shitty men being fucking cunts.
Daily, there are articles in the news and music media about men who are sleazy, rapey, slimeball abusers as victims – exes, fans, colleagues – reach their limit and speak out. Even when there’s no abuse involved, women are faced, daily, with leering, with looks, with salacious comments, patronising mansplaining, being told to cheer up, or to smile, and simply endless shit from twatty men who feel entitled to invade their space in any way they please. ‘Ballistic’ is an explosion of rage that simply says ‘enough is enough’. As such, there’s less focus the accessible melodic elements and everything is channelled into the message, with the medium corresponding with zero compromise.
The familiar stuttering beats kick in at the start before ‘Ballistic’ fulfils the title’s promise and explodes like ‘Firestarter’ on steroids. The band’s performance sees Eville take a giant leap to a brand new level: the guitar is a concrete wall, the drums thrash frenetically, and the vocals… Sheldrake howls like a demon, a full-throated roar, while simultaneously, the accompanying video shows the band taking their bats and smashing various objects in pure unbridled anger.
‘Fuck the system! Go ballistic!’ It’s a simple hook, but pure perfection in its concision. It’s a battle cry, it’s rousing, it’s time to fuck shit up. It is not time to accept the status quo, to tolerate bullshit and plain shitty behaviour.
It’s sheer coincidence that ‘Ballistic’ has landed just a week after the dismal US election result, and misogynistic wankers started ‘your body, my choice’ trending on the festering cesspit promoting every ‘ism going in the name of ‘free speech’, but with this timely release, Eville have delivered an uncompromising anthem that shoves it to all the incel bros and all the other douches. They’re not all necessarily rabid Andrew Tate fans, but just your everyday casual sexist creep.
Clocking in at two and a quarter minutes, ‘Ballistic’ is everything Eville have promised to date, and more, delivering an absolutely definitive statement, and one the most powerful songs you’ll hear for a long time to come.
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Eville – Blood
Posted: 23 August 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPsTags: Blood, brat metal, Eville, Melody, nu-metal, Riffs, Single Review
23rd August 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
I’ve been enthusing over Eville for a while now. This is no small thing: in the main, I’m not really big into Nu-Metal. Back in the late 90s, the emergence of Limp Bizkit and KORN didn’t so much leave me cold as cause me to wilt inside, and as time progressed, the emergence of more, ever lamer and more cliché exponents of the genre pushed me deeper into the realms of despondency. Anyone who’s read anything I’ve written over the last decade will know that I’m not one of those middle-aged sad-sacks who bemoans the fact that there hasn’t been any new music worth listening to released since I turned 30. I’m not frozen in time, and I don’t believe that any genre is completely and irredeemably shit. Even Nu-Metal.
Eville are a case in point. One reason Nu-Metal was shit back in the day is because it was so overtly the domain of white blokes. So the prospect of a female-fronted Nu-Metal band changes things for a start, and having seen this ad recently, I have witnessed first-hand their capacity to whip up a frenzy.
And ‘Blood’ sure whips up a frenzy alright. It captures Eville at their absolute best: massive, slugging guitar riffs that punish, and hard, on every level, paired with poppy autotuned vocals and keen, earworm melodies. ‘Blood’ strikes the perfect balance between gut-punching riffage and strong melodic tunage. It does not get better than this, and you really need Eville in your life.
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Eville – Dead Inside
Posted: 28 June 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPsTags: articulate, brat metal, Brighton, chug, Dead Inside, Eville, Glitchers, guitars, Harry Winks, Heavy, nu-metal, Riff, Single Review, South Arcade
28th March 2024
It’s that time of year again, when, in the UK, you may be forgiven for thinking that the entire music industry is camped out at Glastonbury. This, however, is a chronic misrepresentation, and all around the world, there are quite literally hundreds of thousands of music-makers who have absolutely no connection with the event, no currency, and no interest.
Seeing a few brief snippets on BBC news, with grinning attendees being asked for their views on their experience so far and who they’re looking forward to, I was stuck by just how middle class – and / or middle-age – a lot of those taking heads are. These are the type of people who can afford the £350+ tickets on a punt for ‘the experience’ and the increasingly limited off chance of some decent or interesting acts. The headliners are so safe, predictable, bland, and there’s not much to be said of much of the lower orders, either: the only acts worth seeking out are probably those you’ve never heard of playing in the minor tents who’ve probably had to pay a heap to get in.
Despite the immense coverage and the vast audience, it’s not representative of the majority of the music scene, industry or beyond, and for that majority, things go on as normal. And so it is that we have a new single from Brighton’s brightest, brashest metal new hopes, Eville, hot on the heels of whipping up some crowds on tour with Glitchers, and likely winning new fans in the process.
Anyone who discovered them on this tour will not be disappointed, and having followed them from their very incarnation, I’m not, either.
This latest offering, co-written and produced by Harry Winks of South Arcade, pulls everything that makes Eville an exciting act together and blasts it out hard. With their roots and influences firmly in early noughties nu-metal, they’re as much, if not more about Deftones and Pitch Shifter than Limp Bizkit or Korn, exploring the darker terrains of a genre which came to be maligned as it mutated into sports metal.
As is typical of the genre but also a defining feature of what Eville have come to own as their sound, ‘Dead Inside’ pitches clean melody and rabid growling vocals against one another over a backdrop of guitars denser than lead. It’s the perfect balance of accessible levity and monstrous heaviness.
But they also embrace contemporary pop tropes, with the overt and sometimes quite wince-inducing application of autotune. In this respect, they’re quite the conundrum, and products of our confusing, conflicted, incoherent times. They are the very manifestation of the widening generation gap, appropriating from their parents’ generation while staunchly representing their own. There are no limits.
It’s both musically and emotionally articulate, and represents another flawless entry to their killer catalogue.
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Eville – Messy (BLAIRTHEPRODUCER REMIX)
Posted: 2 February 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPsTags: BLAIRTHEPRODUCER REMIX, brat metal, Eville, messy, nu-metal, Pop, Riffs, Single Review
2nd February 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… so the cliché goes. ‘That must make me Hercules’ was JG Thirlwell’s response on the Foetus track ‘Grace of God’ from the album Flow. He’s a man who should know, having not only forged a career on the outermost limits of the fringes and survived a brief spell on Sony and else controversy and vilification and general unpopularity as a contrast to a rabid cult following add up to in combination.
Eville are living proof of Thirlwell’s take. When they wrote and first released ‘Messy’ they could not have had the vaguest inkling of just how messy things might get. Theirs is a classic story of disappointment and industry failings, but also of bloody-mindedness, stubbornness and ultimately of resilience.
While Eville’s debut release, ‘Messy’ was picked up – and received enthusiastically by a minority of outlets – and you know, I will take a moment to blow the Aural Aggravation trumpet here, because despite our extremely limited capacity, we do get behind those acts we recognise as having clear potential and which, given the right exposure could and should break through.
Instead of a straight-up re-release, they’re following up ‘Leech’ with a killer remix of their second single. Blair the Producer’s twist on it preserves the blunt force and ferocity of the original version, but brings some extra edge. It’s beefy as fuck and is the definitive sound of nu-metal for the new generation.
No doubt there’ll be middle-aged twats bemoaning how it’s too pop or it’s not the same as the shit that was coming out twenty-five years ago. Middle-aged twats – and generally people over the age of thirty-five, who’ve hit the wall and concluded there’s been no decent new music since they were twenty-one – are plain wrong, and they should be directing their dissatisfaction inwards, and not only examining their own sad old lives, but remembering what is was like when they were in their late teens and early twenties. The sad old cunts who still revel in the days of Britpop might want to remind themselves that the golden age they so revere was largely a revival of various bygone eras, primarily the days of 60s pop and mod – mashed up and rehashed. These people are missing the point that progress happens, and the next generation will inevitably pick up on the music of the one before, or the one before that, and make it their own, and instead of bemoaning kids and their lack of ideas, should take it as a compliment that they’ve picked up the baton and are running with it in their own direction. Eville have that baton clenched tightly, and are running far faster than the pack right now.
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