Ancient Abbey

Evol were undoubtedly one of the most obscure bands in Italy during the 90s. The first two albums marked a true innovation in a certain way of playing black metal. Their style has always been incredibly personal, full of melodies and elements from the Medieval Age and marked a real growth of the scene in Italy in this field. Well, after those two albums, they returned in 1998 with this EP, Ancient Abbey.

Their style is always the same, so expect a great dose of dark/medieval melodies and several intermezzos with a hint of black metal for the vocals on shriek and the heavy, low tuned guitars. Their mythical worlds are made of battles and enchanted placed, and this exactly apposition made unique each single effort by this band. This opposition in the concept is reflected perfectly in their music with the unique blend of atmospheres.

So, let’s begin with “The Tale of The Witchlord” that continues on the same path of the past albums and here we can finally experience the heavy tune of the guitars and the black metal screams. Here everything sounds violent and obscure with lots of keyboards parts and arpeggios too. The tempo is never fast and the few times it seems to be, we immediately fall in an acoustic break. The female vocals are perfect to be mixed with the screams.

“Ancient Abbey (Thunder Mix)” has a strange sound for the drums because the production is different, as you can understand from that “thunder mix” and it concerns especially the hi-hat that has a confused and quite chaotic sound. Here we can find lots of up tempo parts and blast beats. There are, anyway, several parts of female vocal with medieval style guitars sound to lead. The black riff that leads more or less all the song is truly violent with tremolo picking technique and the vocals are truly extreme.

“Das gemiedene Schloß” is a track where the sounds of the keyboards and the guitars are essential to create a dreaming atmosphere. The spoken parts are in German and these changes of atmosphere in the various songs are the strongest point in this band, as I said before. “Phenomena” contains truly horror sounds by the keyboards and sometimes they turn a bit more modern when the other instruments enter. Anyway, there’s always a black mass atmosphere and probably it’s their tribute to one the greatest films by the Italian master of horror films, Dario Argento.

The final, “Prologue (Waiting for His Coming)” is nothing less than the fifth track we can find on their debut album, but here is “demo version”. The atmosphere is always great with that balance of medieval melodies and the most obscure others. This track accompanies us towards the end of a good EP. It’s not necessary to own it if you already have the full length, but it can be always a good occasion and a way to discover Evol.