CASTLE – Evil Remains

vote
7.5

• Band:
  CASTLE
• Duration: 00:37:31
• Available from: 06/09/2024
• Label:

• Hammerheart Records

Streaming not yet available

Evil perseveres, it always remains! Word of the Castle, back in action after the “Deal Thy Fate” of six years ago.
A skull, some crosses, the band's logo in full view and the title of the new album: this is how “Evil Remains” presents itself, accompanied by a cover that could easily be mistaken for the poster of a horror film.
And, reading the tracklist, the ingredients to fully enjoy a film worthy of the best Romero, would be all there. In reality, the evil that creeps sovereign and sinister throughout the thirty-seven minutes of “Evil Remains” has the contours of the world that surrounds us, in its most cruel forms of greed, corruption, manipulation; evil forces against which each individual is forced to fight daily, in order not to lose the connection with himself and with the people around him. This is the evil represented by Castle, evoking musical allegories through the weapons most suited to them: heavy-doom, with stoner streaks and a corpulent dose of psychedelia, to distill a mixture of powerful and heavy riffs, with hypnotic and captivating rhythms.
Now on their sixth album, the ace duo formed by Elizabeth Blackwell and Mat Davis have not brought major changes to their formula, however a sense of greater compactness, especially from a qualitative point of view, envelops the plots of the eight songs on the album.
The magnetic and spiritual force inebriated by songs like “Deja Voodoo”, by “Evil Remains” itself or by the ultra-Sabbathian “100 Eyes”, comes from the perfect balance of the work of the two protagonists: on one side the bewitching voice of Blackwell, sweetly balanced on the heavy strings of her bass; on the other, the darker timbre of Davis, author of melodic lines that, while drawing heavily from the old school, maintain a high rate of interest and vivacity. Coordinating everything, the very good performance of the Canadian drummer Mike Cotton, able to give further tension to the light/dark binomial raised by the two colleagues.
The result, as already underlined, is a seductive amalgamation of past and present, a leap in time of over forty years, duly enlivened and enriched by the shamanic strength of the American bassist, here the author of one of her most successful vocal performances.
A clear example is “Deja Voodoo”, the best song on the album: the dark and melancholic intro opens the way to an emotional ascent that increases as the minutes pass, during which Blackwell disguises herself as an absolute narrator, in perfect harmony with the perpetual and incisive pace of the musical section.
And while an Arabian wave surrounds the perimeter of “Nosferatu Nights”, the homage to the godfathers of the genre comes in the aforementioned “100 Eyes”: the initial break is worthy of the very first Black Sabbath, while in the second part, the characteristic wall of sound raised by the two musicians is interspersed with takes that (intentionally?) recall “Eat The Rich” by Motörhead.
Finally, the lively “Black Spell” is also noteworthy, with its enchanting and resounding refrain; further confirmation of a certain variety within a structured and recognizable context.
Acid, corrosive, fascinating: these are the incisive traits of Castle; highly recommended for lovers of the genre.