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Finnish melodic Thrash/Death Metal band Evil Drive was founded in Kotka in 2013 by vocalist Mrs. Viktoria Viren, her husband/guitarist Mr. Ville Wiren and drummer Juha Beck. Ever since, there's been quite a lot of fuss around them, especially in their home territory of Finland, perhaps due to all of these somewhat unfair comparisons to Swedish Metal giants Arch Enemy (for some obvious reasons).

Musically, however, Evil Drive comes from a pretty different world than Arch Enemy – and gladly so. On the band's debut album, The Land of the Dead, Evil Drive's heavily melody-driven Metal is definitely more Thrash Metal orientated and Slayer's influence – specifically riff-wise – comes clear right off the bat. Also, Evil Drive's attempt to capture some essential melody running around their material seems to have paid off surprisingly well. They have many Maiden-ish/Sentences-que, made-for-humming type of melodies within their songs that overall bring more value. In the bigger picture, Evil Drive is also a far more melodic entity compared to Arch Enemy, yet counting more on some purely traditional Heavy Metal elements than those Swedish Metal giants.

When it comes to some of Viktoria's vocal lines, I can definitely subscribe to the fact that she undeniably sounds a lot like Angela Gossow (ex-Arch Enemy) here and there. At times Viktoria manages to shred her lungs out in a way deceptively similar to Angela Gossow's shredding and demonic vocal style, so it's all very understandable why people tend to throw all kinds of comparisons to Arch Enemy when talking about Evil Drive.

Land of the Dead is undoubtedly a very good start from this five-piece, strongly war-themed, Finnish melodic Thrash/Death Metal act. I would even predict them a fair amount of success on the global field of Metal music in the future. The door is open for them anyway. Wish them all the best.