Breed 77: The Evil Inside

Gibraltar’s metal survivors still seeking solid ground

By Malcolm Dome
( Metal Hammer )
published

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After so many years battling against the odds, it would be easy for everyone’s fave Gibraltar band to ease off and tread water. But The Evil Inside suggests they are as enthusiastic as ever about making music to challenge themselves.

This, their sixth album, isn’t uniformly brilliant, but there are some stunning moments. Opener Drown has a formidably heavy riff. Slightly more sedate is Bring On The Rain, which starts with a Spanish guitar interlude before a rousing chorus takes flight. As the song talks about the desperate state of the planet, the music acts as a form of counterbalance to the subject matter, making the lyrics even sharper.

Motionless is an epic track that allows the musicianship to shine, and Fear has a dark momentum. There are some more prosaic moments that prevent this from being perfect, but Breed 77 are still in there, toughing it out like champions.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.