Hideous Evocation – No God Land – Album Review

Hideous Evocation are a symphonic black/death metal band from Madeira (of all places!) and their debut release, No God Land, is a semi-interesting blast of the sub-genres already mentioned.

There’s nothing spectacular about Hideous Evocation and at this stage No God Land can simply be described as a fairly well delivered – yet bog-standard – symphonic metal release. This is relatively low budget stuff so, as expected, the symphonic elements hardly have the bombastic feel of Dimmu Borgir etc but the likes of “If It Returns”, and the title track, do retain a certain blasphemous charm; all croaked vocals, semi-melodic blasting and unnerving atmospherics. If the Egyptian-esque keyboards are anything to go by, then Nile are also worshipped by these Portuguese heathens and Hideous Evocation do manage to conjure lucid images of ancient rites and rituals on album highlight, “Serpent Divine”.

The black metal shrieks of frontman Danny Saldanha are a little strained at times, with his voice suiting the guttural style he occasionally favours, but these guys are all proficient at what they do. However, considering they’ve been together since 2008 and this is their first official release you’d be forgiven for expecting something solid to emerge from the rehearsal room.

So, Hideous Evocation are pretty good and that’s about as expressive a superlative we can use at this stage. Go bigger next time lads; symphonic metal demands grandeur and you’ve definitely the facets to make a leap into the unknown! 6/10