Loss is a feeling so many of us suffer so often in our all too short time spent on this mortal coil. It is a feeling so few of us can truly encapsulate in any way; an experience that is as all-encompassing and engulfing as it is terrifyingly lonely, a black hole of blurriness that breaks the very essence of our humanity down. United by their unified experiences of loss, speared on by the passing of drummer Alex Wood’s mother, Devil Sold His Soul broke their studio silence to shape the songs that comprise their first album in nine years, the aptly-titled Loss.
Born from a band that were bringing themselves back from the brink, Loss is the continuation of the union between original vocalist Ed Gibbs and his successor Paul Green which began when Devil Sold His Soul bought them together for the 10th anniversary tour of their genre-refining debut A Fragile Hope. Like a phoenix rising from the flames, they felt reinvigorated by the fervorous reception to their touring and found themselves putting the pieces of an album together tied up by a multitude of losses they were experiencing both as bandmates and as human beings.
Loss is as much an ode to their ambient post-hardcore past as it is a voyage into unexplored post-metal shores that shifts and shapes itself throughout it’s 10 tracks like it’s an M.C. Escher painting. On Loss, Devil Sold His Soul create a series of soundscapes that are as akin to the sound of the sun shining in through your bedroom window on a hazy summers morning as they are to the sound of a sledgehammer rearranging the residual of your skull fragment-by-fragment.
Tateishi is a a glittering, effervescent experience of revolving riffs and crashing cymbals akin to anything off of Rolo Tomassi’s Time Will Die & Love Will Bury It whilst The Narcissist is a rough-and-ready post-hardcore pummel that bleeds blastbeats with the electro-infectiousness of Architects. But Not Forgotten falls somewhere in the shapeshifting spaces of blackgaze that some of Deafheaven’s more melodic cuts creates an umbrella over, brushing beautiful brutality against the barriers of your brain.
Whilst the show-stopping sensational delivery of the dual vocalists redefines once again what Devil Sold His Soul truly stands for, it’s the goosebump-inducing performance that echoes across a lake of pittering, pattering piano on the titular closer that steals the show; if you’re not crying as the cavernous repetition of ‘I hope we meet again’ etches into your eardrums, you’ve not truly experienced the loss that lingers in each and every line.
Across the lamenting labyrinth that is Loss, Devil Sold His Soul delivers a career-defining collection that comes as close to capturing the ever-evolving essence and experience of loss as undergoing it’s trials and tribulations yourself. If Loss isn’t towards the top of album of the year lists come December, then you need to re-evaluate your priorities. 8/10
The Treatment - Waiting For Good Luck (Frontiers Music) [Matt Bladen]
Waiting For Good Luck is the second album from UK rocker The Treatment to feature third vocalist Tom Rampton and the first for Andy Milburn who take up bass duties replacing founding member Rick "Swoggle" Newman. Stylistically the band have gone through numerous aspects of British rock n roll but what they always come back to is blues based boogie rock made famous by AC/DC, Status Quo, Canned Heat and Stray. This tip of the hat to bluesy boogie rock is continued on Waiting For Good Luck which opens with AC/DC-like Rat Race Tagore and Tao Grey supplying that Malcolm/Angus strut, an oft repeated trick on this record but one that continues to get the head bobbing everytime.
Andy Milburn slots into that bass groove well getting 'in-the-pocket' (jazz term) with drummer Dhani Mansworth for Lightning In A Bottle and No Way Home which has the bar blues of the Quo. In Tom Rampton the band probably have their best singer, his melodic for radio rock but with enough grit to give it some Bon Scott edginess on Eyes On You. Waiting For You is unashamedly stuck in the late 70's style of boogie-based 'pub rock', it's not world changing but enjoyable, unfortunately at 12 songs long it's all a bit to similar and by the latter part of the album I did find my attention wandering a little. Still I'm sure when gigs come back they will be playing these tracks across the country to packed houses. 6/10
To The Grave – Epilogue (Unique Leader) [Liam True]While Deathcore as a whole is up and down these days with what bands are ‘In’ and which are ‘Out’, it’s always a search to find one that stands out with their own noise. To The Grave unfortunately aren’t one of those bands. Their sound is the classic Deathcore sound, which isn’t a bad thing. The thing is what makes the band drag in the shadow is how boring they sound. The first few songs are actually quite good with the screeching highs of vocalist Dane Evans and his thunderous lows actually being the glue that holds the band together in my opinion. Holocaustrailia – Global Warning shows how vicious the band can be as a whole with the hellish guitar tone of both Tom Cadden & Jack Simioni pounding you while the destructive bass sound of Matt Clarke pumbles you. Ecocide& Pest Control continue the heavy barrage as drummer Simon O’Malley rains down the scythe that cuts the band loose and unleashes their fury.
And that’s where, for me, it all goes downhill. Every song from then sounds the same. The same sounding riffs, drum beats and patterns. The only thing that actually holds the record together is Dane himself as his vocals are far and beyond what they should be capable of. The band has massive potential to become the size of fellow Aussie hard hitters Thy Art Is Murder and maybe even the arena crushers of Parkway Drive. But this record shows that they do need to experiment a bit more with their songwriting to make it more intriguing to the listener. If you’re a fan of Thy Art’s older stuff with a darker tone and the production quality not being the best, which does work in To The Grave’s favour, then they’re the band for you. Personally it does drag on for the hour plus run time they have. If it was two separate albums then it may have sounded better? But right now it’s a borefest for me. 4/10
The End Machine project can be considered to be basically a Dokken reunion without Don himself on vocals. Their first album saw George Lynch (guitar), Jeff Pilson (bass) and Mick Brown (drums) reunite the 'classic' Dokken line up with Robert Mason (Lynch Mob/Warrant) taking up the vocals. Musically though the album is full of blues hard rock with those traditional virtuoso touches of known by fans of Lynch or Pilson both of whom are well revered for their playing. Phase2 is the second record of this project (obvious really) but they are without Mick Brown who is now retired, happily his brother Steve has assumed the drum stool for this sophomore album. What is almost obvious on this record is that their seems to be a move towards the 'Hair Metal' AOR/Hard Rock sound of 'classic' Dokken. At times I was expecting them to burst into Breaking The Chains or Tooth & Nail with a heavier riffage on Shine Your Light and Blood And Money as Lynch evokes his Mr Scary persona. Tracks such as We Walk Alone and Dark Divide stick rather resolutely to the blues sound and, of course there are some slow ballads that do drop the pace a quite a bit. Phase2 does what you'd expect from those involved but it's very much more in the Lynch Mob sound than that of Dokken and it'll more than satisfy Lynch/Pilson fans. 6/10