They are perhaps Belgium’s most prolific heavy metal export of the moment. Evil Invaders are set to uncork their first new album in five years, the wildly layered and inspired opus Shattering Reflection (out worldwide as of April 1 through Napalm Records). 

Paying homage to metal masters Savatage, Judas Priest, Exodus and Crimson Glory, Shattering Reflection is a heavy metal masterclass that fully cements Evil Invaders as one of the definitive torch-bearers of a by-gone sound of the genre.

Frenzied frontman and guitarist Joe sat down with BraveWords for a deep dive into the epic new album, insights into his varied influences, his upbringing in Belgium’s heavy metal scene, working with Fleshgod Apocalypse mastermind Francesco Paoli and much more!

BraveWords: It's been five years since your last record Feed Me Violence. You've had a bunch of canceled tour plans and now there seems to be that light at the end of the tunnel feeling, releasing this album and live shows beginning to come back. Does it feel like that momentum is building again after a few false starts?

Joe: “Yeah, definitely. I think we sent the tracks to Napalm in the beginning of October, and I just had the vinyl in like last week. So it definitely was a struggle with all the tours being canceled and all the shows, but we’re definitely looking forward to finally playing the new songs. Right now we're doing a lot of preparations for the release party, so I'm definitely looking forward to all that.” 

BraveWords: As a diehard metal fan, which I know you are, what's that feeling when you physically get one of your records in your hand? Is it kind of a surreal, pinch me sort of thing?

Joe: “The first records, definitely, but I got used to it, I guess. It's also because I've been so busy with all the designing of the artwork and the booklet and the layout of the album. So I've seen it a million times before I actually saw it for the first time, you know what I mean? And that kind of takes the magic out of it. I've heard the record 10 times before I actually played it, you know? So yeah, it kind of kills the magic about it, but in a way getting it and of course the colored vinyl and stuff, that's always cool to see. Now we have this blue and black marbled thing and we never had marble vinyl before, so that's really cool.”

BraveWords: There's something about heavy metal and the artwork part of the experience. Was that something that was really important to you as a metal fan in the early days? For me just looking at the records and CDs, I would pick out stuff just based on the art. I might not even know what it was, but I had to have it based on the artwork. 

Joe: “Definitely. That's how I discovered bands like Living Death and stuff. The Vengeance of Hell record, you see that and you're like ‘What the fuck is this?’ And then you listen to it on the vinyl player in the vinyl shop and you're like woah! and you’re taking it home. These kinds of experiences, of course. And sometimes you're really like, ‘Whoa this is the ugliest shit I've ever seen! I got to buy it!’ Super ugly old school artwork, fucking love it. But yeah, definitely. The layout is definitely a big piece of the entire experience. I'm a big collector of vinyl. I love watching the vinyl and reading the lyrics while I'm listening to the tracks. That's why I guess I'm so into King Diamond as well, especially if you have an album like House Of God or something. A record like House Of God is like a fuckin’ movie. When you read the lyrics while you listen to it the way he did, I think it was his best story as well. It's not the best record, maybe, but like the story and stuff was really cool.” 

BraveWords: Is there one metal record for you, maybe even for a non-metal fan, that is your go-to record? Is there one that really stands out for you? 

Joe: “Picking one is hard. Gutter Ballet from Savatage would be one of my favorite records of all time. Rock ‘n’ Roll from Motörhead. Crimson Glory, Transcendence. Defenders Of The Faith and stuff like that. These are monuments of records ... The Painkiller record, if somebody doesn't know what metal is, has never heard of it before and they ask like, ‘what does it sound like?’ You give them that record. This is everything metal is about.” 

BraveWords: One thing I love about this record for you guys in particular, maybe more so than any of your other work in the past is that you really feel that flow of different influences in the metal genre within the record. Kicking off with a song like “Hissing In Crescendo” and it has kind of Death Angel vibes. And of course, “Sledgehammer Justice” has that Bay Area thrash feel. “In Deepest Black” to me kind of has that “A Touch Of Evil” Priest type vibe. You're really throwing tons at the wall and it works so beautifully. 

Joe: “Yeah, I'm very satisfied with how it turned out as well. I think this is the best album we've ever written and also, as you said, it has the most variety and it really shows everything we can do.”

BraveWords: Was that a conscious effort in the lead up to avoid sameness or it was a case of here are the songs and it happened to go that way?

Joe: “The thing is we had written by ourselves at home for the last five years. As soon as COVID kicked in we threw all our demos into one Google Drive and then we started listening to each other's demos and ideas, and then we had like 20 demos or something to choose from. But this was material that had been written during almost five years of writing. So it was definitely interesting because you could hear it had changed. The later demos sounded way different than the first ones and the vibes were so different and we just chose the best songs that kind of clicked. And it was super hard to make the tracklist for this record. I think the tracklist is definitely a very important aspect of an album. Making the songs go one after the other without sounding too strange after each other was tough, but I think we managed to have a nice flow now. Going up and down all the time in speed and aggression and catchiness, surprising the listener all the time. That was a cool idea.” 

BraveWords: I was reading your piece with Decibel in the lead up to this and there's a lot of heavy subject matter in this record. You’re dealing with loss, illness and death. This isn't just a situation of writing some shit that sounds heavy because that’s what’s cool. You guys are really drawing from yourselves and a lot of instances from the real world. Has that always kind of been the case in the writing process where there may be some therapy or catharsis in pulling from real life situations? 

Joe: “To me? Definitely, since the first EP where we didn't take things so seriously and we were very young. You get older and you get more experiences in life, more influences from shit that happens to you, because of the band partially, but also in your family life and stuff like that. Shit happens to everybody, so why not scream out these emotions into a song? People relate to that as well, you know? I always try to keep my lyrics as open to interpretation as possible. So it starts from something very personal or several experiences I had, and then I try to pull it open into one thing that kind of makes sense for more people than just me.”

BraveWords: One thing I was surprised by was your collaboration with Francesco from Fleshgod Apocalypse. I think that's such a cool thing. He has such an ear, and is such a talented guy. In terms of outside influences and getting someone with a completely honest take who has no skin in the game, especially a guy like that with real experience, how valuable was that to this process? 

Joe: “That was really cool to get an outsider's opinion on our music, because we did the pre-production process all with him. So we would start with our demos, send them over to him. Some were almost finished. Some were like very raw demos, and then he did some changes and came up with some ideas and I was like ‘Dude, you got can do whatever the fuck you want with these songs. If we don't like your ideas we're going to say it, but just do whatever you think!’ Because I was really excited to see what someone else would come up with in our songs. And he had tons of ideas for the songs and I mean, not everything was used, obviously, but it was very cool to see someone else's approach on our thing. 

“In the beginning I was a bit afraid that he would turn it into a super technical death metal song or something, but he managed to really get what we were looking for. I was also telling him what I like about bands like Savatage and all these prog bands is that they have these vibe synths going under the songs. But they don't need them live exactly to perform the song, especially not with the older shit like Savatage or like Transcendence from Crimson Glory. There's a lot of stuff happening, but you don't miss it live if it's not there. And I don't want to play with backing tracks with synths and orchestrations and stuff. I don't want to do that because it's bound to fail with us. I don't like playing on click tracks. I want to speed up if I feel like it in a live set. 

“The thing was he wrote so many things, and then we went recording the album and then started mixing in all those little things ... There's some piano here and there, some synth sounds, there's choirs. There's a lot of stuff in the record, but you hardly hear it. But as soon as you turn them off in the mix you feel that something's missing. And that's really cool. You create an atmosphere. And I think that's what makes this our best production as well, that we have these little sounds in the background that you don't really notice. But subconsciously they affect your mood, I think. The way you perceive it.” 

BraveWords: I think about Belgium's heavy metal history and there are bands like Acid and Channel Zero and now you guys are really waving the flag. I think of Belgium and heavy metal and I think of Graspop. But in terms of younger bands breaking in and coming up, was there an active community of different metal bands and metal bars throughout Belgium? Or was it more mainstream bands touring through Antwerp or Brussels?

Joe: “When we started out in the beginning I think Belgium and every town had its own youth club, you know? There would be shows there every weekend. And what we did in the beginning was just play all those little clubs with local bands and then we would get them a show in our club. So we were doing exchange shows all the time. And then there were these fans that organize a festival for their birthday, like four bands playing one night and the drinks are for free or whatever. So everybody was wasted all the time (laughs). 

“It was an incredibly fun time, 2009, right before we actually released anything proper apart from our shitty demo, you know? It was really cool. We had a good scene actually back then, like small bars but packed. There would be a thrash night and all these guys would come in and the stage was like this tall (makes hand gesture). So people would jump off of the counter into the crowd off the bar. Places were destroyed man. It was cool. It was definitely a cool thrash metal scene back then. Right now I'm really not up to date with what's going on in the very underground. As soon as there are shows I'm on the road again myself, so I spend all my time on my own band.”

(Photos - Tim Tronckoe)