Review: Evil Ways – S/T | Legends Arising

Evil Ways, a Los Angeles based, metal influenced band who were formerly known as Gutters, have their self-titled debut out for quite some time now. It’s likely that not many of you will know them, yet, but that’s about to change. This record is worth the listen, and here’s why:

Evil Ways starts with a familiar intro of squealing sounds and screaming guitars like we know that from a lot of other hardcore bands. Title track ‘Evil Ways’ comes right after, and includes a fun link to one of world’s most famous metal bands. See if you can find it. Both ‘Evil Ways’ and ‘Broken and Defeated’ feature almost demonic sounding background vocals. Speaking about vocals, singer Dylan has this distinguished, old school hardcore sound. A bit of a surprise is the next song ‘Slur’ which features clean vocals. Something really unexpected to say the least after hearing those deep dark background vocals on the previous tracks.

The song ‘Loveless’ is really one of the best songs on this record, for which the band recently released a video. It’s so diverse. From a fast paced start to a two-step piece and later in the song after the phrase “Cold as ice!” you just want to smash some heads. Next thing that stands out is the instrumental song ‘Bitter and Cold”. Deep, dark and heavy are the best words to describe it. The last song on the album is also the heaviest. After 45 seconds the song ‘At War With My Mind’ changes from a fast song to slow and heavy which keeps on for the rest of the entire 2 minutes and 18 seconds during song.

For such an unknown band this is a very solid record. It won’t top some of the other amazing releases this year, but it will definitely draw your attention. Keep an eye out for this band!

Track list – S/T