With only six tracks, the second full-length from Canadian metal act
Evil Survives might seem like an EP, but it's 42 minutes long, and the final track, "The Descent into Hades," takes up more than a third of that. The band plays traditional metal, very much in the style of
Iron Maiden, with galloping bass-driven melodies and upper-register vocals. The first two songs, "Resist the Exorcism" and "Creature of Sin," occupy traditionally blasphemous/satanic lyrical territory, but "J.P.L" stands for "
Judas Priest Live," and that's exactly what the song is about, while "Die Like a Samurai" tells the tale of the 47 ronin, a legend of Japanese history. This is followed by "Ferria Puela," a rip-roaring instrumental, and then the album's closing epic begins. Vocalist Karl Warkentin is shrieking at the top of his range on this track, and it sometimes tips into obnoxiousness, vaulting over the line that separates
Iron Maiden's
Bruce Dickinson from
3 Inches of Blood's Cam Pipes. The song itself doesn't have enough variation, really; sometimes it sounds more like thrash than NWOBHM, but it's not a progressive epic with real movements, just variations on a riff for a quarter of an hour. Ultimately,
Evil Survives are a pretty good band with ambitions that exceed their capabilities. But during the best moments of
Powerkiller, they seem like they could easily develop into a truly impressive metal band. ~ Phil Freeman