Rawfoil: Where Malice Converges - An Italian Metal Evolution
Courtesy of The Metallist PR
The Monza outfit strips away pretense to deliver their most honest work yet
There's something refreshing about a band that refuses to stay in their lane. Rawfoil's latest offering, Where Malice Converges, released this past April via Ad Noctem Records, represents more than just another entry in the crowded thrash-death catalog. It's a psychological excavation wrapped in riffs that bite and rhythms that pummel, where the Italian group has finally found the courage to bleed on tape.
The album's concept centers on the masks we wear and the malice that festers beneath—themes that feel particularly urgent in our current moment of perpetual performance. But rather than delivering tired observations about society's ills, Rawfoil has turned the microscope inward, creating something that feels genuinely cathartic rather than merely catchy.
Tracks like "Arrogance" and "Inadequacy" showcase the band's evolution from their 2018 debut Evolution In Action. Where their earlier work leaned heavily on classic thrash blueprints, Where Malice Converges finds them weaving technical passages through emotional landscapes that feel genuinely earned. The nearly 45-minute runtime never feels indulgent—each moment serves the album's broader narrative about mental imprisonment and the search for authentic identity.
The Interview: Rawfoil Unplugged
Elevar Magazine: Psychologically, your new music paints a picture of masks, mental prisons, and emotional collapse. How much of that is drawn from your personal experience versus observation of society at large?
Rawfoil: "First of all, we thank you for this opportunity and we are really pleased that there are people who are able to go beyond the music and analyze the entire content of an album. For this new album we dug a lot into our personal experiences, we let ourselves be dragged by so many moments, both bad and good, that happened to us, also combining a small component of what happens in the world, both current and past. Creating these songs and playing them also helped us a lot to overcome difficult moments and make them much lighter. Let's say that in every track of this album we left a part of us, now indelible."
This honesty permeates every aspect of Where Malice Converges. When Francesco Ruvolo growls through "D-FENS" or navigates the progressive sections of "Dawn Of A New World," you're hearing a band that's moved beyond mimicry into genuine expression. The album functions as both personal therapy and public confession—a rare combination in extreme metal.
EM: You've evolved from classic thrash roots into a more technical and emotionally charged thrash-death hybrid. How would you describe your sound now compared to your debut?
Rawfoil: "Yes we have really had an evolution, winking at our first album Evolution In Action! We didn't even do it on purpose, but it was the course of events and the maximum freedom of expression that we allowed ourselves, going to express for each component what are the tastes, both in listening and playing. The result of this album for us is excellent from the point of view of personal experimentation and is pushing us to want to improve ourselves and maybe even try something more for the next works that we will do. At times we also 'exaggerated' because playing the whole album is a difficult task, we know that once recorded then it becomes easier to play it but in this case it gave us a lot of effort!"
This self-aware approach to their own complexity is what separates Rawfoil from bands that pile on technique for its own sake. They understand that challenging themselves as performers serves the songs, not the other way around. The technical passages feel organic rather than showy, growing naturally from the emotional content rather than being grafted on top.
EM: Rawfoil has been through lineup changes and different label experiences — what keeps you guys grounded and moving forward?
Rawfoil: "Lineup changes have been tough, but we've always faced them by looking for people who could give something important to the project, without distorting who we are and what we wanted to do. The entry of the young guitarist Tommaso, in addition to rejuvenating us a bit, has also brought a great desire to get involved and grow even more together. As for labels, right now we think that what really matters is writing music and having fun in the best possible way, for that we also like to try different situations, in this case for Where Malice Converges we found ourselves really well, finding a label that understood our needs and our goals and working together with us!"
EM: You've covered Iron Maiden in the past. Are there any dream covers or collaborations you'd love to do next?
Rawfoil: "The Iron Maiden cover was a great way to spend time, we wanted to work on it to understand both how other bands interact with their music and how we could make it ours without completely transforming it, and we were surprised by how much the Maiden fans reacted positively to our work, comparing it to the great covers that have been made of songs that are also very important for the history of music. We're thinking of trying again, maybe with a song that's completely different from our genre, always trying to make it as thrash as possible! We'd like to collaborate with some gods of music but the problem is that we have so many influences and so much choice that we don't know which one to choose! In the next few months a collaboration with an Italian artist should come out, who plays an instrument that has very little to do with thrash/death metal, but deep down we have a thrash soul, so we don't care about fitting into the genre's canons and so we'll do what we want on every occasion!"
The Verdict
What emerges from both the music and conversation is a band that's found its voice by refusing to play it safe. Where Malice Converges succeeds because Rawfoil has learned to trust their instincts, even when those instincts lead them into uncomfortable territory. The album's exploration of psychological darkness feels necessary rather than theatrical, backed by performances that match the material's emotional weight.
In an era where extreme metal often feels either nostalgic or needlessly brutal, Rawfoil has crafted something that acknowledges the past while pushing forward into genuinely personal territory. They've created an album that serves as both mirror and hammer—reflecting our inner conflicts while providing the sonic catharsis to work through them.
Where Malice Converges is available now through Ad Noctem Records in digipak and vinyl formats. For a band that's spent over a decade finding their voice, this feels like just the beginning of a much longer conversation.
Listen to Where Malice Converges here
