Not bad what these ladies and gentlemen from Italian band SAVINGRACES offer here. What gets described as melodic death metal with influences from dark gothic and EBM is on this first (self-financed) long-player a surprisingly cliché-free matter. Ok, I did not really expect EBM on this record and there is no single tone to find on Evilution, but feared standard gothic got ignored too.
In fact I’m listening to tightly structured death metal with a clear level of heaviness (but suiting the music), coming up with a few interesting breaks now and then. These ones are indeed stylistically variegated, ranging from piano tunes as in opener Before Dawn to alternative influences as in S.E.L. up to already mentioned dark gothic. Of course that means the strong use of keyboards, leading us to one of a few negative aspects of this CD: generally speaking the melodies are ok and I like the way the synths get used, but the samples sometimes really sound like on a children’s birthday (e.g. as in Visions); that needs to be tabooed! It is really sad that good ideas per se not achieve the wanted effect and even might listeners put off this way.
But also the production cannot really leave the level of rehearsal room behind. You can in fact hear out all instruments but the dull and powerless sound does not make me go for it that far. Consequently the music has to straighten the flaws. And here SAVINGRACES strike the right path with great songs such as S.E.L. and Nightwalker. I also like the last track Schuld its strophes get sung in almost accurate German. But actually I don’t understand any single word. Well, the same with the English lyrics … At all, the singing could be more differentiated: I’m sure it would well suit the music.
Anyways, there is not that much to nag about on Evilution. If SAVINGRACES go on with what they started, it should not take long time to find an interesting debut album from them in the CD shops of this world.