Pulses of Pleasure, the debut full-length from Belgium’s Evil Invaders, is a solid old school thrash metal album, with little hints of power metal and death metal to spice things up. The guitars are fast, heavy, and melodic, the drums gallop, and the bass is…present. And then there’s Joe (no last name given, although, oddly, the rest of the band give their last names), who handles the vocals in addition to the lead guitars. As a vocalist, well, he’s an excellent lead guitarist. His bizarre vocal style is what holds Pulses of Pleasure back from being great.
Joe’s vocal issues are present, but not immediately apparent as the album begins. Opener “Fast, Loud ‘n’ Rude” finds him using growls, operatic wails, falsetto shrieks, and a Dave Mustaine-like speak-snarl over the aforementioned galloping drums and a handful of different speed-metal riffs. It’s a decent table setter for the record, but it’s also far from the most creative track here. The album’s second song, “Pulses of Pleasure”, is a musical improvement. The drums have the same galloping beat, but the guitar riffs are better and the series of solos that finish out the final two minutes of the song are very, very good. But it’s here that Joe’s vocal tics make their presence much more obvious. His default voice is the speak-snarl, which makes up roughly half of his vocals. Besides the little bit of growling, which is a quite effective contrast, the rest of the time is devoted to falsetto shrieking. Let’s be clear here: falsetto shrieking is separate from the operatic heavy metal wail characterized by ‘80s belters like Ronnie James Dio and Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. No, what Joe does is unleash random syllables of ear-splitting shrieks amongst the snarls. It’s distracting at best, and supremely annoying at worst.
The shrieks permeate the album and keep most of Evil Invaders’ songs from reaching their potential. “Siren”, for example, begins with a minute-long buildup of increasing tension before a new guitar riff kicks in and the song takes off. It’s very effective musically, until Joe comes in and ruins the mood with his random shrieks. “Venom” is a barnburner of fast and catchy riffs and drumming, and it even has a good gang vocal call and response chorus. “The venom is good” they shout, and Joe responds, “That’s what you said.” “The venom is right”, they reply, and then Joe shrieks something incomprehensible about the venom being “in your head.” And once again, his shrieks take something catchy and turn it aggravating.
There are a couple of instances where Joe manages to stay out of his own way and let the band shine, though. The record’s centerpiece, “Stairway to Insanity”, finds Joe actually attempting to sing at times, but the song is by and large an instrumental workout that lets the guitars carry the melody and even features a well-placed duet of guitar harmonies, all centered around a two-guitar riff catchy enough to anchor a Mega Man video game in the late ‘80s. The album’s two-track long, nearly eight minute closer “Blinded / Master of Illusion” succeeds by effectively integrating Joe’s vocal style into the full band. “Blinded” finds the bass, drums, and rhythm guitar pulling back the tempo and volume level to focus on atmospherics behind a Ride the Lightning/Master of Puppets-style guitar solo.
This leads into “Master of Illusion”, which begins with another melodic guitar duet followed by a solo before the vocals come in, punctuated by the usual shrieks. But this time around, the shrieks are actually timed to make rhythmic sense, coming at the beginnings or the peaks of musical phrases. In this way, the shrieks blend with the rest of the music instead of sticking out awkwardly. If only Evil Invaders could’ve found a way to convince Joe to time his shrieks like this on the rest of the album, Pulses of Pleasure could’ve been wholly entertaining instead of fitfully fun.