Centred around the production core of The Enemy (Ashley Jones), Knick (Nick Weiller) and Gigantor (Mike Diasio), since their first emergence back in 2000, Atlanta-based drum and bass trio Evol Intent have risen to become one of the most highly-touted outfits currently operating amongst the US hardstep scene, their profile significantly aided by a string of well-received 12″s on labels including Renegade Hardware and Barcode Recordings. Certainly some time in the making, this highly anticipated debut album from Evol Intent on their own eponymous label Era Of Diversion sees the trio operating in typically gritty and dystopian territory, but manages to surprise with its use of hardcore / metal vocalists on several tracks, as well as its frequent deviations away from the standard drum and bass format, towards dark / near-industrial IDM. “The Foreword’ certainly provides a suitably paranoiac and apocalyptic opening gambit, with a sampled speaker ranting about economic collapse and impending social disaster giving way to the sorts of venomous, distortion-heavy hiphop programming you’d associate with The Bug /Techno Animal, as J. Messinian’ terse verbal flow rides the poisonous bass swells amidst operatic backing vocals.
If by contrast the title track offers up a comparatively straightforward voyage through hardstep drum and bass that slices ominous samples of George W Bush into a blender of jackhammer breakbeats and evil synth bass stabs much in the manner of Gridlock or Noisia, “The Curtain Falls’ takes things down an entirely different and considerably more gentle path, its opening childlike melodic tones giving way to the sorts of glitchy, DSP-heavy IDM-hiphop stylings you’d most likely associate with EDit or Prefuse 73, albeit given a more melancholically wistful edge. Curiously, it also manages to unsettle equally as much as its more rhythmically ferocious neighbours here, collapsing near its end into a symphonic wash of trailing orchestration and crashing rock cymbals.
“I’m Happy Your Grave Is Next To Mine’ meanwhile offers up what’s easily one of the most unexpectedly beatific and gentle moments amongst this collection, slowly unfurling from stripped-back downbeat hiphop rhythms, reversed guitars and dreamy synth layers into a sudden descent straight down the rabbit hole that sees rapid-fire breakcore programming battling for space with some strangely relaxed-sounding Plaid-esque synth pads. If your mind’ starting to wander off at this point, “Smoke & Mirrors’ is guaranteed to drag you back to earth with a bang, with the jagged collision of stuttered and cut-up metal guitar riffage, machine-gun snares and Bane vocalist Aaron Bedard’ leather-lunged roar calling to mind some fusion of Ministry and Atari Teenage Riot. Running in at 19 tracks and 72 minutes, there’ certainly an awful lot to take in on Era Of Diversion. But, by showing scant regard to the often highly-strictured “rules’ of the drum and bass genre, Evol Intent have fashioned what’s easily one of the most interesting records to emerge from that scene over the past year. Recommended.
Chris Downton
