EVOKED ECLIPSE – The Cries Of Evil

vote
7.0

• Bands:
  EVOKED ECLIPSE
• Duration: 00:33:12
• Available from: 02/06/2026
• Label:

• Club Inferno

Reading the Evoked Eclipse biography caused us a certain nostalgia, given that it is the project in which Max Havler is involved, already a member of a small Italian underground group from many years ago like Ophidian, a demo that has proudly been on our shelves for many years.
We are therefore referring – in terms of age – to a musician who is not a first-class musician and, after a first brief listen to “The Cries Of Evil”, the temporal positioning of Evoked Eclipse is equally coherent: we are talking about melodic death/black with a clearly Nordic style which recalls names such as Dark Tranquility, Dissection, Sacramentum, Vinterland or Dawn, combined with more atmospheric moments close to melodic doom metal (with female vocals) and Katatonia of the former now.

The sound, with mastering by the famous Jens Bogren, is perfect for recalling certain sounds and proves to be one of Evoked Eclipse's best weapons, whose lineup is completed by Davide Billia (Antropofagus, Beheaded) who takes care of keyboards, vocals and drums. The work is overall rather short – less than thirty-five minutes – divided into eight tracks of which only five are actual songs, while three are instrumental, intro and outro.
While maintaining a cohesive atmosphere (as mentioned, the sounds are really of quality and very appropriate to the proposal), the songs are quite different from each other and are divided between the melo-death/black as in “The Watch Of Spirits”, “Drops Of Blood” or the title track, and the more sober and melancholy moments such as the long “Land Of The White Spirit Lady” where the voice is entirely female.
It's a pleasant album that can be listened to several times, “The Cries Of Evil”, well played (excellent drum parts, among other things) and well arranged, but which is also a bit of an exercise in style, even though it owes a debt to certain bands of the past: it is in fact really difficult not to hear Dark Tranquility in the progress of “Illusions Of The Life”, as much as Katatonia in the first moments of the title track or the melodic doom in the aforementioned (and successful) “Land Of The White Spirit Lady”.

We have no doubt, however, that it is a sincere homage to the Scandinavian scene of the past: also considering that there are several bands in extreme melodic metal that aim to take up a specific sound and are not interested in adding much more (the Majesties on 20 Buck Spin or Skaldr on Avantgarde, to give two examples) and that at the same time creatures with a high rate of tribute like The Halo Effect still attract their audience, we believe that this work by Evoked Eclipse is very coherent how promising.