Lurking somewhere between the monster movie ghoulishness of psychobilly and the devil-obsession of lightweight metal, The Evil One goes for soaring, but mostly ends up plodding. The tempos are just behind a beat, Roky's delivery a little too uninspired, the lyrics a little to repetitive to anything more than simmer: the songs mostly, show their hand, let it play out, and then end without any twists or turns or surprises or changes.
Arguably, this simplicity and low menace and lack of flash is part of the appeal, but it mostly left me flat. The main exception is the Click Your Fingers Applauding the Play which has an understated, unnamable tunefullness that sounds right out of Guided By Voices, and If You Have Ghosts achieves a similarly hooky transcendence. But for the most part, there's simply not enough actually going on here, a compelling backstory and attendant cult appeal notwithstanding 2.5/5
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