Goddamn! I’m not an easily impressionable person, especially when it comes to music. I take on a Perry Ferrell’s “Nothing’s Shocking” view of most everything, the old “Been there, heard that” mentality. Now this album – it clearly blown me away.
Granted, the first time I listened to DeviDriver’s debut self-titled album, my attention span was blurred by alchohol as I swayed in the back seat of my buddy’s car as we made our way home from Cripple Creek. The Audi’s stereo was cranked to ear-bleed levels, getting us thrashing around like four epileptics watching Pikachu (ahh…good times). Since then I’ve bought the disk and listened to it almost every day since, and in a completely sober state of mind.
Now I am by no means a metalhead, following after bands with a screeching lead vocalist, guitarists with long hair-blowing circles in the fans, and those unreadable band logos (just what the hell does that say on the back of his T-shirt?). With that being said, I like my music heavy. Hmm…a contradiction you ask? Not at all. The heavier the better, but its gotta have some groove. It has to make you bob your head, tap your foot or at least NOT make you run away with your fingers in your ears reciting your ABC’s.
DevilDriver has all that groove plus more balls than the little playrooms at Chuck-E-Cheese. The first track “Nothings Wrong?” is a black metal/thrash intro that makes you jump around the room in hopes that your girlfriend doesn’t walk in and catch you frozen in one of those embarrassing “jammin’ out” moments. The double bass on “Meet the Wretched” is some of the coolest polyrhythmic percussion work I’ve heard in some time, and “I Dreamed I Died” is a great combination of nu-school bounce and old school brutality. Whereas most Metal albums have just one or two songs that grab you, DevilDrivers’ Roadrunner debut hangs you upside down, pounding a different part of your inescapably helpless body with each track. From beginning to end, there is not a disappointing song in the lot.
So what is a DevilDriver? The literal meaning is “a bell that the wicken used to drive away evil spirits while casting spells.” But for Dez Fafara, ex-frontman for Coal Chamber, it’s a new beginning. And believe me, this is no Coal Chamber. After 9 years of ups and downs, unfortunately more downs with Coal Chamber, Dez has finally found a band that can keep up with his vision. The album was recorded with two different producers at two different studios, one of which spawned Guns N Roses’ Appetite for Destruction. With “Swinging the Dead” appearing on the Freddy vs. Jason Movie Soundtrack and “I Could Care Less” already on the MTV2 Headbangers Ball compilation, DevilDriver has hit the ground running at full speed. The group is currently touring and has plans to come to Denver February 2.
