Posts Tagged ‘nu-metal’

Eville – Brat Metal EP

Posted: 2 November 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

When you’ve singlehandedly created a new subgenre, what better way than to cement the trail you’ve blazed with a release bearing its name? This is precisely what Eville had done here with the Brat Metal EP. For the uninitiated, their unique contribution to the musical landscape has been to give the slugging, concrete-slab guitar riffery of nu-metal a makeover, and by blending it with strong pop elements and delivering it all with a strong, empowering feminist message and truckloads of attitude, they’ve kicked the whole ‘sports metal’ ‘rock for jocks’ kind of thing in the nuts and made it something that’s culturally relevant here in 2025.

Maybe I need to unpack ‘relevant’ here. It’s a fact that in music, what goes around comes around, and there are always cycles of recycling, revivals and renaissances, waves and generations. But a nu-metal revival always seemed unlikely because it was so patently uncool, even at the time. But here we are: a new generation is discovering Limp Bizkit, who are back and riding a wave that combines nostalgia for those who were in their teens around the turn of the millennium, and the fact their kids are now teens who are educating themselves with their parents’… what, Spotify playlists now? But more significantly, women are still having to fight just as hard now as they ever did just to hold ground. Sexism, misogyny, and abuse are rife, and there are enablers everywhere.

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This all makes Eville’s rapid ascent even more impressive, and something the world truly needs. It’s remarkable just how a flip can transform testosterone-led whiny shit into something truly powerful, and Eville have, over the course of a handful of single releases gone from being hopeful newcomers to Kerrang favourites performing Reading and Leeds with festival dates already on the calendar for 2026. There’s a very good reason for this: as I’ve been saying from their very inception, they’ve completely nailed their sound, are confident in their identity, and have killer tunes.

Brat Metal offers four more. None of the songs on here breach the three-minute mark, and all are thumping, riff-driven blasts bristling with hooks. ‘BR4T MBL’ powers in with a Prodigy / later Pitch Shifter vibe paired with sneering vocals which are autotuned to fuck for the verses, but then switch to a lung-busting guttural roar. Single cuts ‘No Pictures Please’ and ‘Accidents Happen’ bring real attack, sassy rap and stuttering beats colliding with force. In the former, ‘bitches’ takes on a different slant when delivered by a woman, and it feels like there’s a reclamation of sexist language happening here.

‘Bikini Top’ again brings the dense chug and squalling harmonics of Pitch Shifter, and at the same time offers the flippant lyrical simplicity of Wet Leg’s ‘Chaise Longue’ but it’s charged with the challenge to the male gaze, and it’s a lesson in how it’s possible to make music that’s heavy but accessible, to entertain while offering substance instead of mere fluff. Brat Metal shows that Eville can sustain the intensity and the quality over the duration of more than just standalone singles: it is packed solid, and their most focused document yet.

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Watch: ‘No Pictures Please’ by Eville

Posted: 12 September 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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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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Re:O – Crimson Desire

Posted: 15 August 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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13th August 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Re:O’s ninth single is a song of frustration, of dissatisfaction, about giving everything and receiving underwhelming returns. It’s a song about life’s struggles. And it takes the form of musical hybridity taken to another level. And when it comes to taking things far out, Japan has a long history of it. Only Japan could have given us Merzbow and Masonna, Mono and Melt-Banana, Shonen Knife and Baby Metal – acts which couldn’t be more different, or more wildly inventive. J-Pop may not be my bag, but on reading that Re:O take ‘the best of Japanese alternative music and combin[e] western metal and rock… Re:O has been described by fans as “Japancore” a mix of Metalcore, industrial metal, J-Pop, Darkpop, cyberpunk inspired symphonic layers with high energy and heavy guitar.” It’s a tantalising combination on which I’m immediately sold.

Hybridity in the arts emerged from the avant-garde, before becoming one of the defining features of postmodernity: the second half of the twentieth century can be seen as a veritable melting-pot, as creatives grappled with the notion that everything truly original had already been done, and so the only way to create something new was to plunder that which had gone before and twist it, smash it, reformulate it, alchemise new permutations. If the zeal – not to mention any sense of irony or knowingness – of such an approach to creativity seems to have been largely drained in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, Re:O prove that there’s life in art still after all.

With ‘Crimson Desire’ they pack more ideas into three and a half minutes than seems humanly feasible, starting out with snarling synths, meaty beats, and churning bass – a combination of technoiundustrial and nu-metal – before brain-shredding, overloaded industrial guitar chords blast in over Rio Suyama’s blistering vocal. And it blossoms into an epic chorus that’s an instant hook but still powered by a weighty instrumental backing. The mid-section is simply eye-popping, with hints of progressive metal in the mix.

The only other act doing anything remotely comparable right now is Eville, who have totally mastered the art of ball-busting nu-metal riffery paired with powerfully melodic choruses rendered all the more potent for strong female vocals, but Re:O bring something different again, ad quite unique to the party. It’s all in the delivery, of course, but they have succeeded in creating a sound that is theirs, and theirs alone. No two ways about it, they’re prime for Academy size venues, and given a fair wind, they could – and deserve to be – there this time next year.

AA

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Eville – Get With Me

Posted: 12 May 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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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….

AA

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Eville – Plaything

Posted: 14 February 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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14th February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Eville, who have been gaining momentum – and radio play – for a while, soared to a new peak with ‘Ballistic’ late last year. While sonically encapsulating the title, it also distilled the very essence of the band into THE most explosive two-and-a-bit minutes of no-messing nu-metal.

If ‘Plaything’ suggests something more cuddly, think again. Once again, they tap that classic nu-metal structure of a quiet but tetchy intro, jittery electronics by way of an intro – Something that can be traced back to Pitch Shifter’s first couple of albums back in the early 90s. ‘Gritter’ from Submit is exemplary, and of course not only would Pitch Shifter transition to an overtly nu-metal sound at the turn of the millennium, incorporating elements of drum ‘n’ bass in their sound in the late 90s, but guitarist Jim Davis played with both Pitchshifter (as they became) and The Prodigy. This detour is simply to illustrate the crossover between genres, and to contextualise the sound Eville have absolutely mailed – because after this tense, tetchy intro, the monumental riff hits, and hits hard, and immediately hits an irresistible groove.

A mere ten seconds in, and it’s clear that this is going to be a killer – and it is.

‘I might look cute but Imma get gnarly / I can get nasty, nothing gets past me,’ Eva Sheldreake warns, picking up the lyrical thread of ‘Ballistic’ and presenting a strong feminist stance. The message is direct and clear, and the band’s photos back it up: whether the outfit is a pink bikini or decorating garb, never judge a woman by her outfit, and never assume she’s lacking capability, whether it’s to do DIY or play guitar and rock out, hard.

‘Plaything’ certainly rocks out, and hard. The sheer density of the sound kicks the air out of your lungs, while the chorus hook is as strong as they come. The mid-section goes full Slipknot, the barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat referenced in the lyrics translating to the brutal delivery.

Where Eville stand out – apart from on every level – is in the way they bring ultra-pro, radio-quality production and accessible melody to massively hefty, bludgeoning metal. If there was ever any doubt that they should be playing festivals rather than pubs, ‘Plaything’ obliterates it. No two ways about it: these guys are ready to conquer the world.

Watch My Dying – Egyenes Kerőlő

Posted: 21 January 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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24th January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

These are dark days. I feel as if I’ve written words to this effect a lot in recent months and years. It would perhaps be rather too much to expect there to be the sunrise of a new, optimistic dawn breaking over the horizon, but when there is nothing but the glow of flames beneath a pall of smoke on so many very real horizons, any sun on the metaphorical horizon is eclipsed by a billowing pother and clouds of ash. And then, last night, I felt my heart sink yet deeper still as Donald Trump signed away the protection of the Arctic in his quest for ‘liquid gold’, and declared a ‘state of emergency’ over the Mexican border and promised mass-deportations – ‘millions and millions’, being his megalomaniacal mantra, while the man who owns him, the richest man on the planet, who seeks not only world domination, but galactic domination, threw Nazi salutes to a huge crowd of fanatics.

Fighting the urge to assume a foetal position on the hearth rug in front of the fire and stay there for the next four years in the hope there may still be a world after that, I poured a strong winter ale and took some time to sift through my submissions for something that might make suitable listening.

Listening to light music in the face of such darkness and despondency feels inappropriate, somehow, so stumbling upon the latest album by Watch My Dying felt fortuitous. Extreme metal has a way of providing a means of escape, sometimes.

According to their bio, ‘Watch My Dying has been a cornerstone of the Hungarian metal scene for 25 years, a hidden gem for international fans of extreme metal. Formed in 1999 in Hungary, the band quickly became a defining force in extreme tech/groove metal throughout the early 2000s… Known for their philosophical and socio-critical Hungarian lyrics, WMD stands out in the extreme metal genre, with excerpts of their work inspiring novels and poetry in Hungary.’

It’s the title track which opens the album, with a slow, atmospheric build, before heavy, trudging guitars enter the fray, and it’s only in final throes that all fury breaks loose.

While there’s no shortage of archetypally death- and black-metal riffs, WMD forge a claustrophobic atmosphere with chunky, chugging segments, enriched by layers of cold, misty synths, and some thick, nu-metal slabs of overdrive, too: ‘Kopogtatni egy tükrön’ is exemplary. ‘Jobb nap úgysem lehet’ provides an interlude of heavy drone and hypnotic tribal drumming before one of the album’s most accessible tracks, ‘Napköszörű’ crashes in. It’s hardly a party banger, but brings together industrial and metal with a certain theatricality, finished with some impressively technical details – but none of it’s overdone. ‘Minden rendben’ is more aggrotech than anything specifically metal, and it’s a banger.

Egyenes Kerőlő isn’t nearly as dark as a whole as the first few songs suggest, but it’s still plenty heavy and leads the listener on something of a sonic journey. They cram a lot into the eleven tracks, especially when considering that the majority are under four minutes, with three clocking in around the minute mark. It’s certainly varied, and while not all the songs have quite the same appeal – the last track, ‘Utolsó Fejezet’, borders on Eurovision folk – the fact that they’re in no way predictable is a strong plus.

So many technical players are so busy showcasing their skills that they forget the value of songs. This is not the case with Watch My Dying: the groove element is strong, and there are melodies in the mix – just not in the vocals. The end result is more accessible and uplifting than I would ever have imagined. I almost forgot that the world is ending for a good twenty minutes.

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Eville – Ballistic

Posted: 15 November 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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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.

AA

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Eville – Blood

Posted: 23 August 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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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 EPs
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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.

AA

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Eville – Monster

Posted: 15 March 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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15th March 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Following the stop-gap single release of their remixed version of their debut, ‘Messy’, Eville are back and firing on all cylinders with their first new material of 2024. While it incorporates the defining elements which made their previous two single, ‘Messy’ and ‘Leech’ – namely hard-driving nu-metal guitar slabs juxtaposed with electronic drum ‘n’ bass, which combine to drive a ‘a huge pop chorus,’ ‘Monster’ represents a clear step up, and is, as the title suggests, a monster.

Having a specific goal can provide vital focus in the creative process, and this was central to the creation of ‘Monster’.

If Yard Act are striving to make hits, self-professed ‘brat-metal’ trio Eville are all about the Pits, as Eva (Guitar and vocals) explains the objective for ‘Monster’: ‘We are building on the success of our singles by keeping up the standard our fans expect. ‘Leech’ and ‘Messy’ have done us proud, but we are ready to move up a level with ‘Monster’, I wanted to write a feral tune that would be perfect to open up mosh pits.’

It may be old-school, the notion of making music that will hit live and by playing support slots and touring to build a fan-base, but unless you’ve got massive label backing and PR that can score bags of radio play, it’s the only way for an independent act to grow. And it seems to be working pretty well for Eville.

With its stuttering electronic beats and muted, twisted, heavily filtered synthesized sound at the beginning, we’re instantly reminded of The Prodigy and turn of the millennium Pitch Shifter. Being in the demographic where the arrival of ‘Firestarter’ proved to be an absolutely pivotal moment in music – where a rave act brought in hellish guitars and brutal aggression and went absolutely stratospheric – hearing ‘Monster’ evokes the excitement of that time. It was a seismic shift from grunge, and while grunge served to articulate angst, what followed was more aggressive, more nihilistic, more angry.

What goes around comes around, and it figures that a nu-metal revival would ultimately happen following a lengthy grunge renaissance – but more than that, the generation of new bands are coming of age in truly shit times. It stands to reason that they’re feeling angry and nihilistic. And after many missed out on key life experiences during the pandemic, they’re now finally finding the cathartic release of going mental at a gig. The moshpit is the perfect release.

And yes, ‘Monster’ delivers the potential for an all-out mosh-frenzy. And it’s also got huge alternative radio potential, too. The production is super-crisp, ultra-digital sounding, in the way that on their emergence, Garbage slapped us with a sound that was at once dirty and slick. There are some mammoth guitar chugs, and they’re big and chunky, but smoothed and polished. It may only be a fraction over three minutes long, but this is a massive tune.

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