Masked, cloaked and thoroughly anonymous, The Devil do a good line in photoshoots. It certainly makes their mysterious debut album all the more intriguing, assuming it’s not just some sort of Ghost knock-off – which, thankfully, it isn’t.
Opening with an atmospheric if uneventful intro, things start promisingly enough. Once past this somewhat perfunctory two minutes of scene-setting, however, it soon becomes clear that this is, in fact, an entire album of intros. Fully instrumental, synthesizer-led and of similar tone throughout, it scarcely qualifies as metal at all. The metal component, such as it is, consists of plodding drums and chugging guitars which never develop beyond sequences of simple power chords and basic riffs.
The focal point is a series of soundbites and media clips strewn across the 13 tracks. Taken from TV, radio and the movies, they present a scrapbook-style patchwork of themes drawn from political and conspiracy realms. Shades of The Meads Of Asphodel? They describe this as a sound “unlike any other you will encounter”, which is a pretty big boast that only holds true if you’ve never seen Babylon 5 or watched any Discovery Channel documentary about space.
