EVILE, Wolf @Academy 3 Birmingham 25/10/12

Anyone who goes to a gig in Birmingham must be used to it by now. You know, that bit of the evening where the band says something like “It is a great honour for us to be playing the home of heavy metal.”

Sweden’s Wolf – who get a generous hour-long set - do it pretty early on. The thing is, with them, you have to suspect that it might be more sincere than with most groups. The four piece are very much from the same ilk as obvious contemporaries Enforcer and Cauldron, really a horns-up gallop through some fine Priest/Maiden inspired rock – and what’s more they are great fun.

“Hail Caeser” a crowd singalong of “Voodoo,” “The Fight,” “Genocide” and closer “Speed On” are never going to win any prizes for originality, but they will put a smile on your face, indeed bass man Anders Modd barely stops grinning all night. Their website claims they are “real metal for true bastards” and who are we to argue.

Evile have been slogging around for years now. Frontman Ol Drake informs us that next year is actually the bands 10^th anniversary. During that time they have been hotly tipped (just ask all the people that RTM bored about them after seeing them support Megadeth in 2008) and have had to overcome tragedy with the terrible death of Mike Alexander. While all this was going on they continued to release brilliant records.

Last years “Five Serpents Teeth” was no exception and saw them make some headway. As such it must be gratifying for the band to see the Academy 3 nearly full this, their biggest headline tour to date.

Although most of tonight’s 80 minutes is drawn from “….Teeth” It is with an old song that they choose to begin and the title track of proper debut album “Enter The Grave,” which leads into the fine “Cult.”

Drake explains – as he did at Bloodstock when the band showed their considerable talents with a show stealing Sunday afternoon main stage slot – that the band are shaking things up this time around and the rarely played “In Dreams Of Terror” and “Origin Of Oblivion” both make appearances.

Not to say that the band have forgotten their roots and “Thrasher” sounds as good as it ever did and closing duo “Infected Nations” and “Schizophrenia” take on a new lease of life.

Often derided as mere Slayer copyists in the past, Evile deserve much more recognition. With Slayer struggling, Metallica making one decent album in a decade and the likes of Anthrax and Megadeth producing great records, but a long way from their thrash roots, it is left to the likes of Exodus, Annihilator and Testament to fly the flag across the pond.

Over here, the only reasonable heirs to the thrash crown are in front of us tonight. It is time to proclaim Evile as the best band of their type in Britain.