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The Gauntlet: Evergreen Terrace |
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Evergreen Terrace Album Review
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Tracklist
1 Bad Energy Troll
2 High Tide Or No Tide
3 Wolfbiker
4 Chaney Can't Quite Riff Like Helmet's Page Hamilton
5 Where There Is Fire We Will Carry Gasoline
6 Rip This!
7 Starter
8 To The First Baptist Church Of Jacksonville
9 Rolling Thunder Mental Illness
10 The Damned
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Evergreen Terrace has finally come into its own on “Wolfbiker,” an energetically abrasive album that is not only enjoyably aggressive, but spontaneously memorable. When you hear cuts like the Bad Religion-influenced “Chaney Can’t Quite Riff Like Helmet’s Page Hamilton” and “High Tide Or No Tide,” you’ll feel like you’ve loved these tracks forever. The appeal is instantaneous and immensely entertaining. If the chorus to the latter doesn’t raise your pulse and command you to sing along, you’re a freaking vegetable, because there’s no doubt that Evergreen Terrace is rocking harder than ever before.
The record’s title track is suitably infectious, complete with a dissonant, anguished bridge that builds to a crescendo with an unforgiving authority. It’s hard to believe these guys have come so far so quickly, from upstart hardcore outfit to bonafide contenders for the crown. “Wolfbiker” really is light years ahead of the band’s previous works, both in terms of substance and delivery. Whether Evergreen Terrace is riding out a thumping, mid-paced groove or slamming down a frantic, punked-up frenzy, they do so with an assertiveness that beckons the listener’s attention and demands action. Dual, offsetting guitar harmonies, massive vocal melodies of the type you can’t help but sing along with and mighty, barbed-wire chugging are each strewn throughout the record, accents landing in all the right places.
“Wolfbiker” takes the listener to the edge and back, doing so with musical ingenuity and plenty of conviction. What’s most important here is that the group avoids overuse of typical hardcore clichés, applying breakdowns and gang vocals only when need be. Such restraint is evidence of a refined songwriting palette, and this album is one that highlights a band that has hit its creative stride in grand fashion.
Review by: E.F.
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