Devilment album review – II: The Mephisto Waltzes

Dani Filth strides across the goth/groove rope bridge with new Devilment album

Devilment album cover

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If thus far Devilment have appeared to be Dani Filth’s Sunday morning kickabout outfit, their second album suggests they’ve started winning some matches.

The “unique sound” that attracted the Cradle frontman to the fledgling Ipswich band emerges more palpably here than on 2014’s hasty debut The Great And Secret Show, although ‘uniqueness’ mostly extends to banging together symphonic melodic tinkly-synth goth and circle-baiting, meathead groovecore.

It’s a perverse fusion that requires full-throttle audacity to pull off, so it’s a bloody good thing Dani Filth’s involved, ratcheting the arch eccentricity even higher than usual on songs like Hitchcock Blonde and Shine On Sophie Moone. His savvy guidance and conviction have seemingly rubbed off on the whole band. There’s far sharper musical quality control, with sumptuous melodic passages, satisfyingly blunt riffs and restless arrangements that teeter gleefully along that fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous.

Chris Chantler

Chris has been writing about heavy metal since 2000, specialising in true/cult/epic/power/trad/NWOBHM and doom metal at now-defunct extreme music magazine Terrorizer. Since joining the Metal Hammer famileh in 2010 he developed a parallel career in kids' TV, winning a Writer's Guild of Great Britain Award for BBC1 series Little Howard's Big Question as well as writing episodes of Danger Mouse, Horrible Histories, Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed and The Furchester Hotel. His hobbies include drumming (slowly), exploring ancient woodland and watching ancient sitcoms.