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DEVILINSIDE ‘Volume One’ (Century Media) (2004)
Devilinside is a band that was formed by two ex members from the grind core outfit Disembodied. I never had the opportunity to come across any of the releases from the previously-mentioned outfit, so I really cannot tell whether Joel Andersen (drums) and Tony 'Tubes' Byron’s (guitar) new band bares any similarities with them.
I kind of prefer it to be honest, though, because I can allow myself to relax and listen to 'Volume One' without any 'outside' influences that could potentially 'interfere' with my judgement.
The first thing that you will notice about this album is the fact that it contains twenty three tracks, the longest of which is 'The Outlook', with a duration of four minutes. That alone should lead you to the conclusion that, even though the quartet from Minneapolis/USA claims to be a Metalcore band, they give more emphasis to Hardcore elements in their music - exactly what Suicidal Tendencies did with their debut album and D.R.I with the 'Violent Pacification' opus.
Many of you will probably think that creating a two and a half minute song is an easy task…I believe that in this case, a musician has to face exactly the same difficulties like when he has to write a ten minute composition.
Music is like maths: regardless of the style of music that you play, you need to follow certain rules that will allow your compositions to have a proper structure and to become complete. That’s partly the biggest mistake that Devilinside did with 'Volume One'. It seems like most of the songs of this album do not have a proper structure and some really good ideas and melodies were not 'allowed' to develop to the stage where they would create a greater impact on the listener.
I respect and totally understand the need of these four musicians to create something new, but I believe that they have not yet reached the point where they will be 'experienced' enough to succeed with such a difficult experiment like their debut album.
'Volume One' is an album that has very little to do with all those trendy Metal releases of the last couple of years. Even though the band’s main influences come from Sepultura (Chaos A.D/Roots era) and early Machine Head, both of which are extremely successful bands, there is nothing commercial about this album.
The production is not the best possible, but it does serve its purpose - my only strong objection is that you really need to struggle in order to 'discover' the bass underneath tons of distorted, low-chorded guitar riffs and throat ripping vocals. As for the songs of the album that I find the most appealing: I would say that 'Thirty Four Months For Nothing', 'California Burning', 'Confession' and the nice but very short acoustic theme of 'Transition in E Minor' are the ones that I would probably vote for.
I don’t think that 'Volume One' is ever going to be my very first choice when I will want to listen to something exceptionally good, but it’s definitely not a band album.
I believe that this band has a lot to offer in our music, but they need to take one step at a time, or else they will only stumble and fall. Let’s see what their next album is going to be like.
Review by John Stefanis
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