DevilDriver - The Fury Of Our Maker's Hand review
Band: | DevilDriver |
Album: | The Fury Of Our Maker's Hand |
Style: | Melodic death metal, Nu metal, Groove thrash metal |
Release date: | June 2005 |
01. End Of The Line
02. Driving Down The Darkness
03. Grinfucked
04. Hold Back The Day
05. Sin & Sacrifice
06. Ripped Apart
07. Pale Horse Apocalypse
08. Just Run
09. Impending Disaster
10. Bear Witness Unto
11. Before The Hangman's Noose
12. The Fury Of Our Maker's Hand
13. Unlucky 13 [2006 reissue bonus]
14. Guilty As Sin [2006 reissue bonus]
15. Digging Up The Corpses [2006 reissue bonus]
16. I Could Care Less [live] [2006 reissue bonus]
17. Hold Back The Day [live] [2006 reissue bonus]
18. Ripped Apart [live] [2006 reissue bonus]
+ End Of The Line [video] [2006 reissue bonus]
+ Hold Back The Day [video] [2006 reissue bonus]
+ I Could Care Less [video] [2006 reissue bonus]
+ Nothing's Wrong [video] [2006 reissue bonus]
Although some of the melodies on this album are still a tad trite, it is nevertheless extremely impressive how much Devildriver have streamlined and improved their sound since I heard them the last time. As a matter of fact, it almost seems as if they did exactly what I advised them to do in my review of their debut album. All traces of nu-metal are gone and what remains is a fierce thrash metal hybrid that should impress even the staunchest of metal's malcontents.
Devildriver have one very useful knack, which is sounding very modern and fresh even though they use musical elements that have already been played to death by other bands. This might be due to the fact that they successfully and tastefully synthesize various forms of extreme metal into a coherent and consistent solution. At the same time, using all of these various elements doesn't sound forced as is the case with most older thrash bands trying to insert contemporary metal elements into their music (think Kreator, Exodus and Slayer). The general dynamics of the music bring to mind thrash metal, the heaviness is straight out of the Florida-school of Death Metal and there is a definitive hint of Black Metal coldness in the melodies that the band generously injects into their brew. The fact that all of this is performed with unbelievable aggression and brutality also helps, as does the crystal-clear, yet heavy production (courtesy of the legendary Colin Richardson). The band's drummer John Boecklin is easily one of the top drummers in America right now and Dez Fafara's growl displays an impressive range (he goes from low-end growls to high-pitch screams and is usually fairly melodic in his delivery). The band also very wisely avoids sounding similar to the army of metalcore bands now dominating the metal mainstream, which makes their music sound a lot more respectable.
Frankly, there are no bad songs on this album and it is pretty hard to point out any highlights. It's a consistent flow of high-quality metal all the way through. Both the ultra-aggressive pieces like "Just Run", "Bear Witness Unto" (check out the old-school thrash riff on this one!) or "End Of The Line" and the more melodic numbers like "Hold Back The Day" (this one borrows a lot from REAL melodic Death Metal), "Sin And Sacrifice" and the title track are of incredibly high quality and are a pleasure to listen to and mosh to. The band also pulls of some extremely successful thrash riffs throughout the record. I was totally shocked at how good some of these songs are! With all this said, the lyrics that Dez Fafara screams throughout the album seem to be a little juvenile at times. Not that they are totally embarrassing or for that matter, easily decipherable, which makes it easy to forgive them and to focus on enjoying the music.
After the meager impression that the band's debut album gave me, I would have never guessed that I would say this one day; however, I am absolutely certain that Devildriver's The Fury Of Our Maker's Hand is one of the best metal releases this year and one of the better extreme metal releases I have ever heard. A serious contender for thrash metal album of the year - highly recommended.
| Written on 06.09.2005 by With Metal Storm since 2002, jupitreas has been subjecting the masses to his reviews for quite a while now. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he does his best to avoid prosecution for being so cool. |
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