Devildriver - Pray for Villains 3/5

01. Pray for Villains 4:02 02. Pure Sincerity 4:38 03. Fate Stepped In 5:10 04. Back With a Vengeance 3:42 05. I’ve Been Sober 5:16 06. Resurrection Blvd. 3:59 07. Forgiveness Is a Six Gun 4:42 08. Waiting for November 5:07 09. It’s in the Cards 4:25 10. Another Night in London 3:05 11. Bitter Pill 4:25 12. Teach Me to Whisper 4:01 13. I See Belief 3:55

I should start out by pointing out that I was excited, properly excited by the release of the new Devildriver album, Pray for Villains. I still regard their previous effort, The Last Kind Words, as one of the best albums at least of 2007, and their formidable live show has only added to the wave of hype behind this latest release.

And for the most part, it does not disappoint. The album opens with title track and lead single Pray for Villains, which showcases everything we’ve come to love about Devildriver. Breakneck riffs, soaring melodies, utterly ludicrous drumming, and of course the distinctive vocal stylings of Mr Dez Fafara, who has come a long way from his dubious origins in Coal Chamber. I think it’s actually a legal requirement to bring that up at some point when discussing Devildriver. Anyway, the title track sets the theme for the album, starting as they mean to go on. The technical execution is nothing short of fantastic, with both guitarists showing off their lead and rhythm skills on every song (I‘ve Been Sober and Resurrection BLVD in particular), and John Boeklin’s drumming frankly jaw-dropping throughout. I have often observed that you could listen to just the drum parts from The Last Kind Words in its entirety and never get bored, and the same is largely true on Pray. Boecklin, despite his propensity for double-bass, rarely settles for a simple beat and spends much of his time engaged with wild breakdowns and fills, while keeping his work interesting throughout. Perhaps this is why the drums sit so high in the mix; this contributes to them occasionally drowning out more subtle moments from the guitars, such as on Forgiveness is a Six-Gun.

This is a relentless album, which steamrolls from track to track with little pause for breath. Before the title track even seems over, the band hammer into Pure Sincerity, which deceives to slow the pace a little until the drums kick in at something akin to Mach 2. Fate Stepped In continues in a similar vein, before introducing the album’s first more melodic segment; a fleetingly short breather before the anthemic Back with a Vengeance picks up the pace again. The formula continues throughout, with breakneck riffs, melodic leads and big choruses the order of the day. It’s all good clean fun, and there are so many positives about this album I could sit and list them all day. However, it’s not all good news.

Certainly the album starts strongly, and the pace barely lets up throughout, but at times this just makes it seem overbearingly samey. And while some tracks offer variation in tone or pace, their placing on the album seems haphazard; you begin to wonder if there is any design behind it at all. To put it another way, it would make absolutely no difference to listen to this album on shuffle. Maybe that’s what they were aiming for, a kind of all-out assault on the senses, but I can’t shake the feeling that it was just done better on The Last Kind Words or even The Fury of Our Maker’s Hand. Crucially Pray weighs in a full ten minutes longer than Words (25 if you get the Special Edition) but offers if anything less innovation. There’s a formula you can trace through every song, from riff to drums, buildup to growly vocals, followed by breakdown and solo. It’s a solid enough template to work from, but a template nonetheless; you just don’t get the feeling that Devildriver are going anywhere with this release. They could take a lesson from Lamb of God, or Mastodon; bands who you see evolving and developing from album to album, never settling for more of the same.

Perhaps Devildriver are victims of their own success; their last two albums were really too good, and I’ve come to expect nothing short of excellence from them. Don’t get me wrong, Pray for Villains is by absolutely no means a bad album, and the majority of its tracks will slot right into Devildriver’s already impressive live set. However it suffers somewhat from a lack of cohesion and stand-out classics, and I just can‘t see it being the kind of CD that you never take out of the player. Devildriver have always been a band haunted by the past; it’s ironic that the extent of their success in exorcising the ghosts of Coal Chamber and proving themselves a real force in modern metal has conspired to make me just a little bit disappointed in Pray for Villains. It’s a solid effort, a 7 out of 10, but Devildriver are the kind of band who should always be swinging for tens.

Pray for Villains is available to buy or download at play.com

Genre : Metal, groove metal

Article by Phil Sim