You know the rules by now: an entire album discography comprising of at least three albums, every single one of their albums featured on a Necessary Evil album of the year countdown on the Most Trusted Blog in Music. There were a few Legacy Gold Star Artists who added to their repertoire in 2023, but on this post I’m going to be concentrating on the five artists who earned their wings in 2023. Or rather, who were already glorious winged beasts of musical sapience, but got those motherfuckers gold plated in 2023.
Oh, and these particular entrants will just be copied and pasted into the master post as well. I’ve just created this new post highlighting the new entries so you wouldn’t have to go back to the original entry every year to see who has earned promotion. So don’t come at me with that “You never think of us! You treat us so bad!” bullshit, alright? I treat you just fine. If anything, I treat you too well, so that might not be a string you want to pull too hard on. To see how new albums by Legacy artists like Wednesday and Janelle Monae did? Yeah, you’ll have to check the rankings on the master post. Like I say, I already treat you too well, so be careful what you ask for. And did you read what I thought about that Janelle album?? Probably not breaking into that top three, is it?
Anyway, without further ado:
Lykke Li
Bit weird that I decide to include Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson’s extraordinarily accomplished 2011 album ‘Wounded Rhymes‘ on the 2023 countdown, wasn’t it?? You must have been like “Yo, this boujee stan finna be high key random“, or similar.
I would like to remind you that, whilst there is often madness in my methods, there is always method to my madness. Like Marina and the Diamonds, Lykke Li was a victim of China Syndrome, releasing their second album during that awkward time when my status of being quasi Chinese and quasi happy lead to me not bothering to make an albums of the year countdown. So while Marina Diamandis’s circle was squared (or was their square circled? Genuine question for the mathematicians in the audience) with the impossibly influential ‘Electra Heart’ being ranked in 2022, Li’s placing last year meant that one of my favourite artists over the past decade and a half is finally given the respect they deserve.
It was love at first sight between Lykke and I. Their high drama twinned with high pop sensibilities, their ability to unlock almost the Gothic elements of sexual discourse, the unparalleled bop/beauty ratio: they fast became one of my favourite things. So much so that they have never bettered the #3 placing that their debut album ‘Youth Novels’ achieved in 2008.
How Lykke Li must curse MGMT, as if it weren’t for them there’d be no-one else this year who could touch her run of singles quality-wise; Breaking it Up, I’m Good I’m Gone and Little Bit are classic twisted-pop, infectiously melodic but with a dark streak in them as long as a Swedish winter night
Yeah, an MGMT reference, because their debut record was #7 that year. Contemporaries, ma dudes! There are weirdos* who still follow MGMT’s dribbling career like they were the Beatles reformed with the resurrected bodies of Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin, but Lykke Li was allowed to continue to creatively grow and challenge herself and her audience positioned slightly more outside that glare.
(*no, there’s no use being polite, let’s call them what they are: perverts. Absolute artistic degenerates. People who really enjoyed Time to Pretend when they were kids so are now cursed to an adulthood of pretending that MGMT are still in any way close to being a valid act, or even that they ever were. The kind of people who would get really offended if you even suggested that MGMT wrote some great pop songs once. Because ‘pop’ is what girls like and MGMT fans all have strong opinions on the forced politicisation of video games. Just to be clear: nothing against MGMT, everyone is allowed to make crap music if they want to, it’s just their fans that are the scum of the Earth)
On that 2008 post, I also picked out exactly two of the album’s 12 tracks that seemed ever so superfluous. Lykke obviously listened, as no album she released afterwards would have more than ten tracks, and they would get shorter and more concise.
Starting with 2011’s ‘Wounded Rhymes’ (#21 in 2023) , two songs and two minutes shorter than her debut. Li’s second album is far darker, far more abrasive, far explicitly hornier than ‘Youth Novels’. Than anything else in their discography. ‘Wounded…’ is Li’s great outlier: it’s a comparatively simplistic set of songs, often aiming for the spleen rather than the heart, and has at its heart a great anger that isn’t so central in their other work. And, more superficially, there are frequent moments on ‘Wounded…’ where the production and instrumentation almost sounds intentionally cheap, obnoxious even. After 2011, you would never again hear abrasive synth stabs like the parped intro to Youth Knows No Pain in Li’s albums.
The album is darker, moodier, and the lyrics are heavier. There’s less atmosphere, more directness. I was 19 when I recorded my first album, and I’ve been exposed to many things during these last few years; all the baby fat is gone. I dove into the craziness and did things that maybe I would think twice about when I get older. And I’m a really restless person; I’m tired of the way I sounded or looked yesterday. So it’s hard to hang onto this image of me as this young Swedish female in this world. People comment on how you look, it’s so unnecessary. I just wanted people to listen to what I have to say instead of focusing on anything else. And, of course, there are a lot of things I’m angry about in the world.
Pitchfork 18/11/2010
The album might not have just been a response to how their debut was received in some quarters (“I just felt like I must be some kind of porn dream or something because all they seemed to listen to was my high-pitched voice.”*) but also perhaps to what was by far their most well known song at the time and almost definitely to this day: their contribution to the ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’ soundtrack, the almost painfully beautiful Possibility. By 2011, if you’re a 24 year old woman desperate to be thought of as a legitimate artist (“It seemed like people weren’t listening to what I had to say. And I feel like that’s probably just a [product of being a] female too, because a lot of the great men that I love suck at singing. I don’t think Neil Young has a beautiful voice but it’s something that grabs you and the songs are so good”) then ‘Twilight’ was absolutely the wrong brand to be associated with. It was perhaps the height of Twilight Hate, which generally went hand in hand with Girl Hate, and as a young female artist you wanted to distance yourself from that as much as you could. Thankfully, Li would make her peace with that, and Possibility along with the ‘Wounded Rhymes’ track I Know Places would actually point far more to the places they would take their music next.
(*hence “I’m your prostitute, you gon’ get some”)
If anything, Li massively overcorrected with ‘I Never Learn’ (#40 2014). Their most base level and amateur sounding record (intentionally so, I must add) was followed by a record so lush and expansive that it would rival the buzzing sounds that overwhelmed Phil Spector when he shot Lana Clarkson dead in 2003, probably after she spurned his sexual advances. And while ‘Wounded Rhymes’ was skittish, fevered and angry, ‘I Never Learn’ is slow, deliberate, and – mate – really sad. It’s also the first time in Li’s career that they could on occasion be quite fucking dull. Li claimed the first three albums were a trilogy that chronicled “a woman in her twenties and her search for love and herself”, which… OK… And was it always meant to be a trilogy or…? OK, “I signed a three-album [deal] when I was about 21. So I knew that I had embarked on this journey and that there was no turning around”. Sure. Bit weird that you never mentioned this in the previous six years, but cool, whatever.
At the time I said that it took “quite a lengthy time to really fully appreciate- for the first 5 or 10 or 1000 listens it sounds drab and uninspired, with Li merely moping around in a sad mood after a massive relationship breakup”. Now, ten years later, I’m not sure I would ever use the adjective ‘lengthy’ in that way again. I’m also as accustomed to this record as I’m likely to be, I can say that it is an incredibly well produced and ambitious record. While maybe not the “exemplary example… of the sheer, sumptuous beauty of the pain of heartbreak” that I would eventually describe it back in 2014, it’s an admirably expansive work. The songs themselves aren’t strong enough to not be overwhelmed by the ‘up to the eleven’ backing. It’s, also, frequently quite dull and I’m not sure I’d list any of the singular tracks amongst the nine tracks (one track fewer than the previous record, and eight minutes shorter) amongst the artist’s best.
Thankfully, four years later they’d return with their career best. And a shitload of entries onto their ‘best of’ list.
‘So Sad So Sexy’ (#10 2018) saw Lykke Li dye their hair blonde, incorporate trap and synth pop into their sound, rarely raise the tempo above ‘I Never Learn’s respectful intentionality but creates a more dynamic and essential sounding record by leagues of magnitude. It’s ten tracks, 34 minutes, and banger after banger after banger after banger. I said in 2018 that ‘SSSS’ was “Absolutely the best album of her career and, if I’m being brutally honest, the follow up to her incredible debut that I’ve always hoped she’d make, rather than taking off into more moody and retrospective places”, and I still stand my that. The songwriting and production is tighter than it had ever been, and the sheer hit rate of song quality is unmatched in Li’s career (or, for that matter, in few artist’s at all). It scales back the production overkill on ‘I Never Learn’ and marries it with the infectious pop ability that Li showcased on their first two albums. The songs here are also often fucking heartbreaking and – fuck all y’all – would fit perfectly onto any motherfucking Twilight film, because the sheer emotion being portrayed here is box office, ma dudes. Also, let’s face it, those piece of shit movies need all the help they can get. If Lykke’s second album tried its best to detach the artist from beauty, and the third was overloaded signifiers of what beauty is while lacking understanding of how best to convey it, ‘SSSS’ is an absolute goldmine of beautiful moments and melodies that understand how love and longing should sound. Jagu-wars in the ai-yer, jagu-wars in the ai-yer, ai-yer…
And then, sigh, there’s ‘Eyeye’ (#56 2022), which I struggled to think of much to say about at the time, and still struggle two years later. Taking four years to follow up their career best with a seven track nothingness is… an achievement of sorts, I guess? A bit of a waste of time, and so lacking in dynamism and song quality that the one strong feeling it inspires is one of crushing disappointment. Can I just do the ranking now?
metagirl (FKA aqua girl)
I could lie and say every year I never change but my
Poetry gets increasingly loose and my love
Is expanding by the day to include
People I don’t even like
Naughton My Watch (My Love Is Expanding)
This entry won’t be as long, I promise.
I honestly can’t remember quite what it was that first alerted me to ‘Stereologue’ (#19 2018), the debut album from then then aqua girl. It certainly wasn’t the misuse of capitalisation. I was on a big Z Tapes kick in 2018, the resolutely independent independent record label based in Slovakia that introduced me to similarly homemade magic such as Govier, Pickle Darling and Helltown (later known as Efficax), which Elora Driver was a artist on. Don’t look for Z Tapes, it’s not there anymore, but their founder Filip Zemčík now runs the Start-Track label, which very much continues the former label’s good work in collecting wonderful independent music on essential periodic compilations, so get onto that. I can still feel what first attracted me to them though: the songs are outstandingly stripped back, often just Elora and an acoustic guitar, yet the production is clear enough for the preem songcraft to come through clearly without much adornments. Driver also communicated the fears and anxieties of gong through transition better than anyone I’d previously heard in a libbed up culture that often framed (and frames) it as an overwhelmingly positive ‘girl power’ journey of simple empowerment. And the charm! By Gods the charm! There are few artists working today that are as uncommonly charismatic as Driver, and on their debut that charm makes up a far larger part of their music’s appeal than it would later need to. I admitted at the time that it was “maybe it’s not subjectively the 19th greatest album of 2018″, but Elora’s charm would often fill in any gaps (and there honestly aren’t that many) in the songwriting. And then they’ll drop a line like “Sometimes you need to hear your jokes are funny” and just melt you.
This charm was still very much present on ‘The Woods’ (#21 2020). The name wasn’t, as Elora was going by ‘metagirl’ by this point. Elora might argue about the name, but the charm wasn’t as essential this time around, as ‘The Woods’ is simply an honest to goodness brilliant album. The songwriting had matured, not a single note sounded in any way homemade or slightly amateurish, and in No Medicine (#74 on the 2020 Legit Bosses) and Anam Cara (#85) contains Driver’s first certified bops! “Aqua/Meta’s main calling card is her ability to communicate unbelievably raw, tender and honest lyrics in the style of a waiter politely reading you today’s specials but not being so loud as to interrupt the phone call of the other person on the table. ‘the woods’ manages to reinforce the abilities that Aqua/Meta showcased on her debut, but add further elements to her sound and widen the palate of influences”. metagirl’s evolution has continued with the same forward momentum on last year’s ‘(22) I FEEL YOU EVERYWHERE‘ (actually #22 in 2023), which again outstripped the achievements of its predecessor and offered more undeniable evidence of their artistic legitimacy. There are numerous Gold Star Artists who are in real danger of dropping off the list with a future release that I can’t bring myself to care about. Elora Driver is definitely not on that list, and it’s fascinating which direction they will evolve into next.
Jamila Woods
Hey, a meme that’s as true today as it was when I made it for my 2016 review.
Woke up this morning with my mind set on loving me
With my mind set on loving me
Woke up this morning with my mind set on loving me
With my mind set on loving meI’m not lonely, I’m alone
Holy
And I’m holy by my own
I’m not lonely, I’m alone
And I’m holy by my own
Yeah, not gonna NGL, Jamila Woods can be pretty cringe, bro.
Her heart’s often in the right place, don’t get me wrong, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with highlighting past important (and frequently class conscious) activists and artists such as Stanley Baldwin. Though it has to be noted that, though she occasionally sings about extremely worthwhile current activist groups like Assata’s Daughters, Woods largely skews toward the liberal thinking that past battles are the only ones worth supporting. Woods’s frequent issue is that she looks as these past class battles between the oppressed and the oppressor and, rather than agitating for more class upheaval, they come to the conclusion that “Wow, black people must me magic or some shit?? Which means that I – me! – must be super magic!!”. It’s such overwhelmingly liberal, identity politics coded nonsense that it can make a dedicated Communist such as myself find it difficult to make it through either of her first two albums with their eyes resolutely unrolled.
That freaking charm again though?! The debut album ‘HEAVN’ (#49 2016) just wins you over by quite how openly it couldn’t give a shiny shite about what you think. Interpolating Just Like Heaven by The Cure? Is that deemed sacrilegious or just really dumb? How about both? And how about it sounding amazing? A whole song based around the clapping game ‘Mary Mack’?? No sane person would do that, surely?? Well fuck all y’all, here’s VRY BLK. Oh, and it features Noname, so maybe remember that name. OK, how about quoting the fucking Dawson’s Creek theme song?? No, Jamila, don’t… Ah shit, they’ve actually done it. Yeah yeah, I know, fuck what I think… Despite the occasionally weighty topics, there was an undeniable sense of fun on Jamila’s debut record. Possibly because, due to her ultra liberal identity politics, because of what she is (rather than who) Jamila believes they’re always amazing, so why wouldn’t things be fun?
The second album ‘LEGACY! LEGACY!’ (#58 2019) didn’t want this ‘fun’ of which you speak. It was framed as a motherfucking important album, with important references and intended to have an important impact. However… this ‘importance’ is so studied and intentional. All it actually does is reference notable artists such as Zora Neale Hurston, Octavia Butler and Nikki Giovani, but does little more than conduct a quick Cliff’s Notes to their work without adding anything. And the album is far less concerned with contemporary activism than Woods’s debut, often even glossing over these namechecked figures’ personal struggles and how they would relate to modern battles. Jamila adores the aesthetics of activism, but on their second album too often feels like Kendall Jenner handing the oppressors a Pepsi.
Most importantly though, the songs themselves largely aren’t there on ‘L!L!’, at least in comparison to Jamila’s debut.
However, the third album ‘Water Made Us’ (#14 2023) was an absolute triumph. On it, Jamila changes her focus from the ‘political’ (ie: libbed up nonsense) to the personal, which is all liberal politics are about anyway so the removal of the façade is very welcome. Their poetic talents can be better appreciated when they’re instead focused on love and the give and take of adult relationships, as these are topics that Jamila understands better than near enough anyone and can really exhibit her lyrical strengths. Jamila’s third shows them understanding their talents and finally presenting them in their strongest light. Plus, it includes Tiny Garden, which might actually be the greatest thing ever.
Noname
OK, I don’t want to start on a sizzling Hot Take so burning and concise that it’s likely to slice through your tiny mind like the finest Valyrian Steel…
Ah shit, yeah, I forgot: nobody remembers that show.
Anyway, as I was saying: Noname has often been pretty fucking dull.
I’m sorry, but it’s true. And kind of reflected in her early album’s placings. Their debut, ‘Telephone’ (#94… ninety fucking four?! This list has been ridiculous at times… 2016) was absolutely admirable. Well done, Noname, yay for you. But it’s also extremely light, both in content and in musical ambition. The songs are airy and inoffensive, and the album is obviously designed to be as bright and unobtrusive as possible, Noname’s lyrical writing is the central star. Which is great. Again, Noname, yay for you. Though it’s interesting to look back now and find the artist so concerned with the very 2016 liberal concerns of identity and self adulation (Noname fit so easily onto Jamila Woods’s debut). The socialist allusions and paeans to community are not yet there.
Also:
“Admittedly, the relentless polish of the record can occasionally render the tracks somewhat homogeneous, and there’s a nagging feeling that the record exists to satisfy the people who find Chance the Rapper a little too abrasive”
That’s perfect, No notes.
The second album, ‘Room 25’ (#69, dude, in 2018), was a vast improvement, that I may have underrated slightly with that placement. The songs are closer to songs now, and the continued jazz influence no longer means being completely tied to loose and ill-defined noodlings. There’s also far more of a political conscience than on their debut, which is important as that conscience would soon become a central part of Noname’s identity.
But… yeah… A lot of it is still pretty fucking dull. And still largely imbued with the flighty ideology that self-love and positivity were the most important things rather than extended questioning or protest.
After ‘Room 25, Fatimah Warner took an extended break. From music, that is. They started the ‘Noname Book Club’ in 2019. They seemed to become slightly more class conscious alongside their usual identity-focused liberalism. The George Floyd murder moved them to angrily accuse the World’s biggest/richest black rappers of being cynically silent on real issues whilst basing their whole cultural identity on black struggle. That Tweet actually inspired a now historically hilarious piece of mealy-mouthed tone policing by J.Cole on the song Snow on tha Bluff: “But shit, it’s something about the queen tone that’s botherin’ me… Just ’cause you woke and I’m not, that shit ain’t no reason to talk like you better than me”.
Initially, the best reaction went to Rolling Stone’s Charles Holmes:
Cole makes a litany of excuses. Despite going to college, he suggests, he’s not as deep or intellectual as everyone thinks he is. Being rich is actually hard, because he feels guilty that he’s not doing enough with his wealth. Then the kicker arrives at the song’s climax: ‘If I could make one more suggestion respectfully / I would say it’s more effective to treat people like children’. At 35 years old, J. Cole is upset that a woman didn’t expend enough energy and sympathy to teach and critique him as if he were a child…
In essence, Cole would like Noname to be nicer to him and his black celebrity ilk when voicing her legitimate concerns about the failure of capitalism and the state. Additionally, he’d like us to consider the possibility that expecting famous men to read (or perhaps even join a book club) before voicing their opinions is just too much to ask for. Someone needs to hold Cole’s hand through the revolution
J. Cole Walks Back His (Possible) Noname Tone Shame — But Still Wants Her to Teach Him (Rolling Stone 20/06/17)
…but then Noname themselves simply blew everyone involved out of the water with Song 33. Centring the conversation around real issues such as the epidemic of murdering trans people; the kidnapping, rape and murder of Black Lives Matter activist Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau; and attempts to ‘democratise Amazon’ (Amazon workers would finally get their first labour union two years after the song is releases), Noname doubles down on their original complaints. These multimillionaire rappers, who have exploited and commodified the black experience for their own profit, are fucking silent when that same community needs their support. Oh! But when an artist justifiably articulates the issues with your apathy? Then you speak up? Because they hurt your feelings?
But niggas in the back, quiet as a church mouse
Basement studio when duty calls to get the verse out
I guess the ego hurt now
It’s time to go to work, wow, look at him go
He really ’bout to write about me when the world is in smokes?
When it’s people in trees?
When George was beggin’ for his mother, saying he couldn’t breathe
You thought to write about me?
It was fire. It was angry, it was funny, it was energised. They would later apologise for the song –“I tried to use it as a moment to draw attention back to the issues I care about but I didn’t have to respond. My ego got the best of me” – but Noname must have felt a spark of something when rapping more explicitly about issues more related to her expressed socialism*. The follow-up to Room 25, ‘Factory Baby’, was actually announced way back in May 2019, but was canned at the end of 2021. Perhaps she just wasn’t the same artist anymore? Perhaps, as she suggested when she raised the possibility of retirement, she wasn’t any kind of artist anymore?
(*I address Noname’s ‘socialism’ in my last review. TLDR: yeah dunno bout dat)
As the about Insta suggested in 2022, Noname decided that perhaps they weren’t ready to give it all in quite yet, and considering quite how big an improvement ‘Sundial’ (#6 2023) was, I’d say they made the correct decision. Far, far, far more substantial, more focused, and more energised than anything they’ve done before. They’re no longer “smokin’ positivity like dust“, they’re engaging with actual wider issues rather than self-realisation, and yet now have the confidence to realise that joking about matters doesn’t mean you’re taking them any less seriously. An absolute triumph that leaves all of their previous work in the dust.
Fever Ray
OK, playtime is over kids. Mommy’s home.
I’m honestly not connected enough with the wider discourse these days. Is Karin Dreijer Andersson afforded the freaking respect they deserve? Despite taking nearly 15 years to release the required three albums that necessitate entry into this Hall of Fame, Fever Ray has towered over Necessary Evil since close to its inception as a central figure, as one of its cultural touchstones. They are one of the most important and most meaningful artists of the last 17 years. Of the 21st century. On this blog they’re near peerless. In this house we stan Fever Ray.
Maybe I’m being biased here based on current events. I went to see Fever Ray perform live a couple of nights ago at the Albert Hall, Manchester. I had tickets to see them play the Manchester International Festival back in 2018 while promoting their previous album ‘Plunge‘, before unfortunately their general anxiety (“a disorder that always lurks in the shadows that I have had to work carefully with and around”) meant they had to cancel the show “to take care of myself and restore my health“. I had waited a long time to pay my respects to such a seismic and vital artist, and the edging that they had been indulging in had been killing me.
And they were astonishing. One of the greatest gigs I’d ever been to*. The review I linked to sums it up well enough for me to not need to expand on it (though, seriously, who writes like that?? Music journalism is so dead), I’ll just focus on the fact that Fever Ray are responsible for some of the most incredible music released during my lifetime. I work out that their entire back catalogue consists of barely 35 songs in 17 years. But the percentage of them that are incredible is close to 95%**.
(*admittedly, a large number of the gigs I’ve been to were when I was an alcoholic, and done so while indulging heavily in the pastime. The gigs I remember most are the ones where I was abusing drugs at the time instead. Lesson to be learned: do drugs, kids, stay away from alcohol. Don’t allow the respective legality to confuse you: alcohol fuck you up and some laws are worth breaking
**Do I rank them all one day…? Shit, I have to do that Hotelier countdown first, don’t I?)
And it started with a self-titled debut (#3 2009) that – ah shit – might still be the best thing they’ve ever done? I don’t like stating that an artist as successful as pushing music forward as Fever Ray peaked with their debut (especially after just naming their third album the best of the year) but… Fuck, ma dudes, this album is incredible. Album of the year in almost any other year, but unfortunate to come out in the same year as arguably the greatest album of the 21st century (Fuck Buttons would actually contribute remixes to the deluxe edition of the album) and the always celebrated occasion of the Manics actually releasing a good record, Fever Ray’s debut just happened to be released alongside other 21st century highlights. It’s a masterwork. Dark yet dreamy, evoking atmosphere like no other record in decades has done.
The dark synthesized drone that underlies much of the album- coupled with Andersson frequently distorting and deforming her voice to the point where it begins to sound like a David Lynch attempt to rewrite Cher’s ‘Believe’- is at times jarring and even slightly nauseating for the listener, but this only adds to the effectiveness of a record designed to take you out of your comfort zone…
Fever Ray is a brilliantly idiosyncratic piece of work, not to mention the always welcome sound of an artist making no concessions on their individuality and yet still making music that is gloriously listenable
I used to able to write one time…
It was such an emotional heft of a record that it took eight years for Fever Ray to release the follow-up ‘Plunge’ (#6 2017), another masterpiece which nonetheless feels like the one Fever Ray album that feels slightly inferior. I mean, for fuck’s sake, it finished outside the top five?? Embarrassing for them. It’s fucking amazing, of course – every little thing they do is magic! – but I feel that back when it was released I incessantly willed for it to be the year’s best and it wasn’t quite there, which has always lead to me unfairly resenting it slightly. But, fuck me, it’s absolutely criminal that To The Moon And Back wasn’t included in my top 101 of the last 10 years list. And it should have charted high! Unfortunately, I wanted to make A Statement and make sure at least one song from the current year was included. At that point, Shiver was the best I’d heard, one song per artist, so fuck off one of the greatest insane pop songs I’d ever heard! Your lips. So warm and fuzzy. I want to run my fingers up your pussy.
Oh, yeah, about Shiver. That album, ‘Radical Romantics’ (#1 2023) was the best album of last year. No arguments. But… not quite their best ever. Maybe that will change with the unfair benefit of nostalgia.
Bow down to your masters.
Necessary Evil 