I remember seeing The Devils last year in Leeds. I also remember walking out of the room about 10 seconds into their first song. I swear if I’d stayed in the room for the whole set I would’ve lost my hearing, and gained a permanent loud screaming sound. So to say I was looking forward to listening to this CD would be lying.
The Devils contain members of such extreme grind/noisecore bands such as Doom, Stalingrad, Hard to Swallow and Extreme Noise Terror which is an impressive ex-members CV in hardcore metal terms, and they certainly know what they are doing.
I was quite surprised to find myself quite enjoying certain parts of this CD (ie. the parts with melody), even if it is the musical equivalent of a brick in the face. The music has heavy usage of old school metal riffs that seem to have been written with mosh in mind, the music is often mid-paced but then breaks into fast thrash tempo songs. When you see song titles such as “Don’t rape my papa then rub your penis in my face” I think you know what to expect.
The artwork is fantastic, and contains a lot of 1940s/1950s style Army/Bomb related propaganda and adverts, which seems to be the theme for the whole album. A political anti-bomb, anti-global capitalism theme is present in the lyrics, which is no doubt a source of the anger found on the CD.
This record has more in common with Metal than Punk, and would no doubt go down a treat with fans of extreme metal, but if that’s not your thing, I’d probably suggest that you give it a miss. However, If you like angry extreme metallic noise you’ll probably love The Devils. Having heard them on record, and seen them live and I can vouch for the fact that your ears are in for a rough time.
Phil