Belgium-based extreme metal new blood Evil Invaders have released album three, Shattering Reflection. A sharp, iron-clawed, speed banging attack designed to whiplash eardrums and damage flesh and bone in the pit. The reflection was a five year project with blood, sweat and tears embedded in the songs, lyrics and riffs. The four-piece outfit is ready to shred and stomp their way across the post-pandemic globe, when the world returns to normal with America being on this year’s or 2023’s to do list.
They’re doing their own thing, creating their own style. Joe, Senne, Max and Joeri make up the invaders. With influences from the original headbanging OG’s to the vintage thrash of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, the Invaders drive a sound reminiscent of Headbangers Ball taking the sounds of Megadeth, Overkill and Exodus along with Kreator modernizing riffs bringing shredding shrapnel to the current Belgium pit breeding brethren. There’s also plenty of melody and instrumental greatness to go around.
Joe on Shattering Reflection’s shattered mirror image cover art. “The broken mirror would represent bad luck, breaking free from the past. You have reflections of stuff in our previous artwork as well. Like a new chapter for the band.” As long as they don’t bring seven years bad luck, its all good.
Joe says the newest video “Sledgehammer Justice” and “In Deepest Black” was filmed in the same place. “There was an abandoned mine here in Belgium, like a coal mine. It was a really huge, old factory, very big, old and rotten. It was very cold as we recorded it.” Both videos carry a cool retro ‘90s Headbangers Ball style.
Contrary to its appearance and title “In Deepest Black” was not filmed in B&W. “We took away some of the colors and lowered the definition. It was filmed with 4K cameras but looked kind of shitty, low quality so we lowered the resolution to look more old-school.” The color’s are so muted you can’t tell, “Yeah.”
Whether a mood or state of mind, lyrically he wanted to keep “In Deepest Black” open to different meanings. “When I write lyrics I try and keep them as open to interpretation as possible. To me, this is more about a time when you feel abandoned, alone, don’t know where to go and stuck in life. Like a viscous circle.” He clarifies it’s NOT a Spinal Tap, ‘darker’ reference.
Several shots show his face in shadow with eyes wide looking through a sliver of light, like a crack in the door. “Something I see in movies when they just light that part of the face and eyes. I had the idea as if you’re in some dark place with a little ray of light shining through and you’re moving. It passes your face and thought it was pretty cool artistically.”
Album opener “Hissing in Crescendo” blasts loud with reptilian slither. “The song’s actually about insomnia. I wrote it when I couldn’t sleep one night and had slept badly for weeks. I have a very restless mind. I had tinnitus in my ear, like a ringing, hissing snake. You’re twisting and turning during the night, can’t find your spot. It’s like being strangled by a snake. I got up and starting writing everything that was in my mind and turned it into this lyric.”
Two instrumentals “Realm of Shadows” and “Aeon” have eerie audio whispers similar to the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. It’s not quite like hearing the Freddy rhyme but does put you mentally in slashing ‘80s Springwood. “That was written by Max our guitar player. I can’t say where the inspiration came from, but it often comes from a lot of angles. We combine styles. I think most of the time we don’t think too much. We just write, slam some chords and it turns into a song. Sometimes I’m on the couch watching TV and suddenly a melody pops into my head and have to run to my guitar, find where it is and make a song out of it.”
“My World” sounds like a great Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza impersonation. “That’s actually our guitar player singing. We get that a lot.” Max wrote the song, sent it to Joe and Joe told him to sing it. “He wanted me to make my version of the song. It was his words and worked the way he felt at that moment. I told him, you’re gonna do it dude, I’ll help record it properly but that was cool.”
With a resounding, repeating invitation, the final song, “The Circle” asks you to join “That’s something, hitting several topics. I try and combine different storylines in a way in my head. “The Circle” could be a cult.” He thinks people are often drawn to those with magnetic, charismatic personalities and vibes. “Somebody like that could easily use people to their own advantage. As if it was a cult leader or something. Just throw out your line and wheel them in. One by one, join the circle. It’s about all the things that go wrong in these type places.”
As a band they bring the classic sounds of metal’s forefathers through the strings giving modern and upcoming generations a peak back to decades past. Black Sabbath, Rainbow and Judas Priest will always be part of rock and metal’s standing foundation. “Bay area thrash is also a big influence in what we do.” He thinks modern metal sacrifices too much in favor of heaviness and brutality with the art of good song writing being a bit lost.
It doesn’t matter the genre as long as you write good songs. “I think the song writing in metal these days is a bit generic. If you compare it to, Iron Maiden, they wrote pop songs with a heavy metal hook. Its heavy metal but also very catchy and there’s melody going on. These days if bands do that they often sound like a power metal band. That’s not really my thing.”
He doesn’t want to be bound by one or any genre. “What we do is definitely influenced by thrash, there’s so much more and I think that’s the problem with the modern scene. Everyone tries to put everything in boxes.” Black Sabbath, Iron maiden and Judas Priest are all metal bands but sound completely different. Though he loves the early era of Slayer, Overkill when thrash was being formed.
Vocally he can scream, screech and rasp with the best of’em, “I can, at this point choose which flavor to give. During the last few years I’ve improved a lot as a singer. Right now I feel very comfortable in blending vocal effects into songs. When it’s an angry word I’m gonna use more rasp when it’s more narrative and mellow, I’m gonna come across with a more clean voice, makes it more interesting.”
On their DVD, Surge of Insanity: Live in Antwerp they covered Venom’s “Witching Hour.” “I don’t know how we ended up doing it. We just started jamming it at the rehearsal. Max was singing and started screaming it and I was like cool, let’s do it. It’s a simple song to play as well.”
They do the drawbridge intro every show for “Broken Dreams In Isolation” “We do it whenever we can. We made these mic stands with an engine in them, so they can turn with the sound of the drawbridge.”
The first summer of the pandemic they did a live stream of the Alcatraz Festival in Belgium then did a rainy, cold show for a crowd sitting outside in October. “It was very weird to play for a crowd that was seated. We’re all about energy when we’re live, we feed off it. Feed from the crowd and they feed from us. It was a one-way train. It kinda drains you as a musician to scream and see people sitting there. It makes you feel less in a way. Our music is about releasing the frustration and anger that builds up around the days you go through shit and scream it out there. You sit down, you can’t do that. A year later, things were opening up in Europe.”
Alcatraz was an incredible experience. ”It was really cool. Everybody got tested before they entered, or had vaccine. As soon as you entered the grounds, everybody took off their masks and there were no rules. It had been so long since people went to a show.” They could feel how hungry the crowd was. “It was crazy. We played the third day, on a Sunday, the weather was great. Everyone was screaming and super hungry. We played one of the best shows in our career, that day. The energy was just there.”
They tried coming to the U.S. recently but were sent back for Visa issues. “We wanted to play the Milwaukee Spring Bash. We went to Chicago and they locked us up for 22 hours and sent us back. It’s definitely on the bucket list and we hope to make it with this record. I see a lot of attention coming from the U.S. so that’s cool.” Their following and fan base is growing here.
For the time being they’re focused on small festivals and The Netherlands. “Nothing bigger confirmed yet but we’re working on it.”
For 2017’s Feed Me Violence record, he spent a lot of time hanging upside down, wrapped in a straight jacket during the “Mental Penitentiary” video. “That was long, almost a whole afternoon, every take, going up and down.” The next week his head sported popped blood vessels and had bad headaches for a few days. “It was definitely worth it.” They rented the jacket from a prop shop with their makeup artist delivering it on site.
“Broken Dreams In Isolation” was filmed in an old castle in Belgium. “It was a castle where we played a show a while before. They gave us the opportunity to do something cultural there. Then some dudes took advantage to organize a metal show. We saw the place and said this could be interesting. Very old and well preserved, we decided to do the clip there at night.”
The chains and meat scene was filmed in a medieval bathroom and the film crew buried him alive at the end of the video, maybe a bit too eagerly. They have several more videos on YouTube but those are arguably the most elaborate.
Though member change happened often early on, it’s been a steady lineup since 2015 with two EP’s, three records and a live recording to date. And Joe’s not going anywhere! Though for the time being, once they start playing regular shows again they want to give fans the best of each record though he doesn’t exclude playing an album start to finish, if it feels right.
Locally they encourage fans to check out the Belgium-made brutality of Butcher, Schizrophrenia, Carnation and Acid.
Cell phones don’t bother him as the intensity and movement of the show makes looking through a phone difficult. “Our show is too intense to hold your phone and look at it. It’ll get smashed because everyone’s moshing all over the place.”
The band really hopes Shattering Reflection brings them overseas to the states this year or next. “I hope to be coming to the U.S. with this record and I hope to meet people in real life and see what the scene is, explore the venues and everything.”
The newest invasion is available on all platforms with “Sledgehammer Justice” ready to be delivered onstage.
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