They Live! by Evil Nine (Review)

I discovered Evil Nine a few years ago on The Crystal Method's compilation Community Service, but I didn't pay them much mind until I caught their single "Restless" on the soundtrack for London (incidentally, also a project from TCM). I loved You Can Be Special Too for a while until it was buried under a figurative pile of house and drum 'n bass.

Until last week, when I learned they are indeed very much alive.

They Live!, which entered stores in 2008, is the second album by the Brighton-based DJ duo. It's definitely not your average set of party breakbeats; as the cover art and title imply, this is more Rob Zombie than Fatboy Slim. In order to keep the theme's consistency and sheer power of the album, many of the tracks feel quite gritty. Whether it's the now-retro amount of synths, or the relatively slow and heavy bass, almost the entire collection demands your full attention. Unless you've listened to it a hundred times and watch Halloween sequels with your bacon and eggs in the morning, this is not "background music."

However, that is not to say the album is rough. It's definitely well-executed. Beaufoy and Pardy are able to maintain a sense of variegation while keeping in line with the apocalyptic theme. This is largely due to the contributing vocalists, including EL-P, Beans, Emily Breeze, David Autokratz, Seraphim. To my personal satisfaction, Toastie Taylor makes an appearance once again in the ominous "Dead Man Coming", although the track doesn't carry the same eminence that "Restless" did.

What I really like is how Evil Nine were able to keep the zombie theme without the songs being, well... about death or destruction. "All the Cash" has definitely been the hit single off the album, but EL-P's lyrics seem to present something of a love song instead of something sinister:

All the cash and all the cash and all the cash and all the cash in the world can't pay me to let go of you (go of you)
and all the death and all the death and all the death and all the death they dealt don't change the way I fell for you (fell for you)

Fortunately, those lines are intelligible. Unfortunately, most of the other lines in the song aren't (at least to my poor ears) and the lyrics aren't available anywhere on the Net.

It's my humble opinion that it is this characteristic that has made Evil Nine's breakbeats so impressive. A DJ doesn't just try to play decent music - they work on creating and maintaining a mood in the room. Beaufoy and Pardy are first and foremost DJs and they don't forget this in their studio creations. It's the music as a whole which drives their tracks. This could not be said for other many other DJs' studio production (David Guetta comes to mind). EL-P and Toastie may have great voices, but Evil Nine is the name on the cover.

Of course, maintaining this kind of a theme is really a double-edged sword. The album starts well, but some of the latter tracks don't hit the mark because they're either too similar or too different. Beans, from the acclaimed Antipop Consortium, tries too hard to make "Set It Off" a catchphrase and the repetition of the lyrics gets a little tiresome. "Twist The Knife" sounds too much like a rock song for my tastes, but Emily Breeze's voice is a welcome change from the male voices associated with Evil Nine tracks. However, this song does come dangerously close to violating the rule I explained in the last paragraph as at times it seems Evil Nine's instrumentals revolve around Breeze's crowing instead of vice versa.

If you're like me, looking forward to the coming zombie apocalypse and listening to good breakbeats are two big pastimes for you. They Live! is a great union of the two and you'll definitely want to pick it up. That being said, it's not a perfect album for everyone else. It's not party enough for the clubs (aside, perhaps, from some of the "All the Cash" mixes circulating) and the consistent urban wasteland theme is too dark for many other people too.

It's a lot like the survivors of such horror flicks - unique, alone, standing apart from a mass of soulless unintelligent nothings down below and ready to blow all of them away.

4/5
This album may be downloaded legally for free from Spiralfrog.com.