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DevilDriver : DevilDriver | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
If you're looking for exploration or experimentation, you won't find it here. This is full-on, head-down, twice-the-speed-of-sound standard-issue death metal; performances which question nothing and add nothing to material already testing the bounds of musical redundance. There's only one emotional register - cartoon rage; only one noise level - eleven. Individual musicianship is barely discernible under a compressed barrage of overdriven bewilderment; the drums provide not so much power and pace as clatter and confusion. Meanwhile, the lyrics make much of questions such as "what does it take to be a man?" and fire irritable salvos at concepts like "grandiosity" and "your sickening pompous ways." Fafara's answer to mankind's ills seems to be a queasy mixture of fury fuelled by social conscience ("go down town and meet the wretched . . . we're taking what they're giving") and bloody vengeance pulled straight from the script of a sword-and-sorcery PS2 game ("I am the one that you need . . . the devil's son has just begun.") Add a sprinkling of Crowley quotes and cover art bristling with gothic fonts, arcane script, animal claws and zodiacal sigils, and the picture is miserably predictable. If you have a use for all that, fine. If you have an invitation to the midwinter bash at Klingon HQ, take this along - it'll go down a storm with the painsticks and blood wine. But DevilDriver won't be making many converts with this dismal debut. |
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