There comes a time in every band's career when they peak; financially, artistically, commercially, whatever. Think Marilyn Manson's immortal hat-trick of albums between 1996 and 2000 or the Darkness' headline slot at Reading and Leeds Festival on the back of their first album. The rise is inevitable, the fall even more so. When the bar is raised so astronomically high, it's nigh-on impossible to clear it.
DevilDriver have one such bar to hop over. After clawing at the edges of critical acclaim for three albums, the band finally reaped what they'd worked so hard to sow. Their fourth full-length, 'Pray For Villains', was a masterclass in modern metal, delivering the perfect amount of brutality and melody, with hooks big enough to pummel Mike Tyson's face to ribbons. Its follow-up, 'Beast', made for a more uncomfortable listen and alienated newer fans, with melody being ditched in favour of animalistic, volatile bursts of punk-tinged horror. Had the California Groove Machine lost its edge?
Of course not. From the first few seconds of album opener Oath Of The Abyss, it's abundantly clear that DevilDriver have learned from their ‘mistakes’. The guitar lines are 10 times more memorable than anything on the band's last outing, and this continues right onto the second track, Ruthless.
It just doesn’t let up. The first five tracks of this album are utter gold. Jeff Kendrick and Mike Spreitzer's dual-guitar attack gives Desperate Times an extra beefiness, while DezFafara's monstrous vocals are put to perfect use throughout.
His screams on Ruthless are blood-curdling, with the man's throat resembling an abacus made of razorblades. New bassist Chris Towning does an admirable job, slotting right in to help make DevilDriver possibly the tightest they've ever been as a band.
Starting with a mini breakdown and Fafara barking at the top of his lungs, things take a different direction with Gutted. While this is refreshing, the track lacks the glorious melody of previous number The Appetite and falls just short. This is the case for the majority of the album's second half. It's brilliant, but it just doesn't match the sonic sorcery of the opening salvo. Perhaps a shuffle of the album’s tracklisting should have been made somewhere along the line.
Remember when Cradle of Filth covered Temptation by Heaven 17 at the end of an album? That went well, didn’t it? Well, DevilDriver have avoided any such pitfalls with their cover of Awolnation’s Sail, the album’s closer. The stripped back verses only accentuate Fafara's unique growls, and when the chorus kicks in...what a tune. Not only have the Californian wrecking crew paid homage to the original, but they've actually topped it, adding a refreshing spin to an already innovative ditty.
DevilDriver are always going to stick to what they do best, and that’s gargantuan, chunky tunes fronted by one of the most distinctive voices in modern metal. What they have proved with 'Winter Kills' is that they don't need to constantly change their sound. But simply by throwing in a cheeky curveball like Sail, the band have also demonstrated that they're more than ready to throw their necks on the chopping block in the name of experimentation. Without a seven minute bassoon solo in sight, DevilDriver have evolved.
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