It is tempting to wonder how far Suffolk sextet Devilment would have come thus far without Dani Filth as frontman.
The moonlighting Cradle icon’s distinctive spitting croaks, rasps and shrieks are all over this slickly recorded and swankily packaged debut, as are his compelling concepts and lyrics. With his esteemed patronage, the band find themselves in a position that few acts this inexperienced could otherwise hope to achieve so early in a promising, if yet undeveloped, pub-level career. Dani’s vocal arrangements are eminently satisfying, and the synthesised instrumentation adds a crucial effective dash of colour and texture. But the meat of Devilment’s material is the riffs, and these are a little too simplistic and forgettable to push the album to greater heights, rhythm guitars arbitrarily chugging through a range of popular styles, least effectively on hyperactive opener Summer Arteries, which throws an ace mellow-Metallica 80s intro up against ill-fitting techno-pop and death-slam grooves. For every fist thrown, another is bitten, but the potential is clear.
Via Nuclear Blast
