Evil Nine have often found themselves tagged as a breakbeat act; indeed they won the best album 2004 Breakspoll award for debut ‘You Can Be Special Too’. But the influences of rock, prog and twisted hip-hop that nestle alongside the breaks were always apparent and are now crystallised on Pat Pardy and Tom Beaufoy’s follow-up, ‘They Live’.
“I don’t really like that much breakbeat these days!” laughs Pat. “I fully appreciate the people from that scene who embraced us but I think our taste has changed quite a bit. We released ‘Cake Hole’ in 2002, which to me was the last breakbeat record we made, which is like six years ago! We love music full stop so breaks is just one of thousands of types of music we like.”
The Brighton-based duo have been working together for a decade now and their sophomore album sees their wildly varied influences, ranging from Cluster to Queens Of The Stone Age, combine with their dancefloor sensibilities. “We pool from all over the place and try and amalgamate it into one track without being too obvious,” says Pat. “It’s always grounded in the dancefloor. We have to sort of stick to that but we try and put as much as possible in there.”
Dancefloor considerations aren’t allowed to spoil the duo’s creative freewill, however. “At the end of the day it’s got to be a wicked tune more than anything,” says Tom. “I think the album’s a good mixture. It’s got quite a cinematic feel in places with quite lush textures, stuff that really hits hard on the dancefloor and also stuff that’s a bit more cerebral that you can get into.”
There’s also an overriding zombie theme thrown into the melting pot. ‘They Live’ takes its name from John Carpenter’s 1988 horror film. “My brother, when he used to baby-sit, showed me Zombie Flesh Eaters. I was like nine, crippling my young mind!” says Pat. “We did one track that had quite an obvious zombie vibe to it and then did another track and realised it had that zombie feel again. I wouldn’t say it’s a concept album but it’s got that running theme in there.”
The zombie influence is clear from the artwork and track titles such as ‘Feed On You’ and ‘How Do We Stop The Normals’ and you can almost visualise the flesh hanging off the bone when you listen to stomping lead single ‘They Live’. It’s also provided a good excuse for the duo to indulge in some dressing up. “We’ve done a series of three short films,” says Tom. “We’re zombies but we act like normal and the rest of the world looks normal but acts like zombies. In the first video we’re really shit security guards with zombie face-paints and make-up and all of the other people in the office are walking around like zombies and groaning and moaning but look normal.”
Joining the leagues of the great undead are collaborators including Beans, El-P, Toastie Taylor, Emily Breeze and David Autokratz. There’s also unknown talent, Seraphim, who the duo discovered on MySpace. For a chance encounter, the result is a fantastic, shimmering-yet-grimy highlight.
‘They Live’ is a varied and accomplished second album and with a rumoured tour supporting Does It Offend You, Yeah?, it looks like the invasion of the body snatchers may well be afoot. You have been warned.
