2007-05-08
I don’t know why it took 4 years for The Netherlands' Devious to create a second release following their 2003 debut, but I have to say, it was worth the wait.
Strictly speaking, the band creates melodic death metal, if I have to elaborate, they also feature some nice thrash riffs, black metal black beats and atmospheric moments, so basically it's a combination of several extreme genres. Usually I advice such things to be avoided, in metal – as in cooking, keeping it simple is usually for the best, and sticking to one kind of cuisine, or metal genre, is probably the best thing to do. Not here.
These guys manage to stir the multi-genre effort quite easily, sounding good and aggressive in whatever musical direction they explore. The crisp and clear sound helps them quite a bit with their endeavor, but the solid musicianship has a lot to do with it as well.
While opener – "Room 302" is mostly a melodic death number with strong blast-beats, a track such as "Incantation Of The Earthbound" is much more diverse and over the top, having several strong riffs and a solid drive throughout; It's very complex and quite long, very aggressive too, but it works thanks to the band's good writing ability.
While their brand of death metal is certainly not a new invention, I liked the way the band injects the proceedings with enough modern sounding groove and progressive elements to make this not sound dated. "Boundless Domain" is a fine example of that.
Some other interesting bits are such connecting instruments as "Suoived Pt.II" that continue with strong aggressive numbers as "The Repentance", quite an impressive technical display by the band, again feeling a bit more like epic black metal during some of the verses, only delving onto death metal later.
The only problem I have here is that some of the later songs seem to slip into complacency, with a few of them sounding quite similar and lacking in any unique hooks.
All in all - an impressive release, quite complex and technical, this should probably tickle the fancy of tech death fans, but other extreme metal fanatics will also find what to like here.
Alon Miasnikov
