Looking for some new dark and heavy rock ‘n’ roll, especially some with flames of lava-esque blues within encroaching doom bred shadows? Then there is a good chance that the debut album from Australian heavy rockers Devil Electric will have the senses buzzing. Offering nine predacious slabs of seventies inspired heavy goodness with a virulent catchiness in its grooves alone, the release declares a new mouth-watering force in town.
Hailing from Melbourne in the midst of 2015, Devil Electric swiftly began honing a potent reputation for their sound and live presence, the latter seeing the quartet play alongside the likes of Truckfighters, The Sword, Kadaver, and Endless Boogie over time. Last year saw the well-received, highly praised release of their first EP, The Gods Below, which saw the band subsequently lured by and signing with German label Kozmik Artifactz for the release of their swiftly gripping self-titled album.
It opens up with Monologue (Where You Once Walked), quickly raising intrigue and appetite for spicy portentous rock ‘n’ roll with its opening prowl. Entangled in juicy grooves and driven by raptorial riffs and rhythms, the track soon steps into a seriously contagious stroll, thumping beats and intrusively pulsating bass lures a bestial temptation and grooves a fiery vining of the senses. In the midst of the instinctive seduction the richly magnetic tones of vocalist Pierina O’Brien roar; her voice another irresistible focal point among so many in the song fair to say.
The starter is glorious, almost reason alone to check out the album but quickly matched by the equally compelling exploits of Shadowman. As quickly as the first grips ears and imagination, its successor swings on them with irresistible dexterity and endeavour, grooves again winding around the appetite as rhythms belligerently unload their intent. Marching through ears with an antagonistically commanding air, the track proceeds to spread fiery fingers, guitarist Christos Athanasias spinning a web of flirtation as the blended trespass of bassist Tom Hulse and drummer Mark Van De Beek court and invade the senses.
The sultry flirtations of Lady Velvet wind their charms around the listener next, O’Brien leading the heated vines of the guitar with her beckoning tones. Alongside her Hulse’s voice makes a potent backing, always understated in the mix but a firm texture which works perfectly with O’ Brien’s. Ultimately the song maybe does not have the same thrust as its predecessors, preferring more of a smouldering attack but it too is created from a tapestry of sonic imagination and rhythmic enticement this time with just a sense of physical rabidity involved.
Acidic Fire similarly has a fire borne climate and siren like call to its body, O’Brien the central protagonist but more than matched by the sonic weaving of Athanasias. In many ways the song crawls over the body and psyche, enjoyably searing the senses before the bestial gait and muscle of Monolith brings its own instrumental sludge thick crawl to bear. After its softening up of defences, the mercurial air of The Dove And The Serpent immerses ears, its climate soaked in danger and seduction as it dances in ears like a sonic equivalent of festivities bred from a mix of venomous isolation a la The Wicker Man and The Witches.
Both The Sacred Machine and Lilith with their individual trespasses keep the rich temptation flowing, the first with its invasive yet bewitching blaze of sound and intensity, the second with its haunting atmosphere and exotic mystique. The latter is an instrument which swiftly has the imagination conjuring whilst seeming to set up the atmosphere of the equally enticing and occasionally salaciously moody Hypnotica. The closing track and the band’s new single, the song is six minutes plus of flaming ambiences, emotive intensity, and sonic webbing; all primed to seduce and enslave the senses and in turn the imagination.
It is a mouth-watering end to a striking at times ear withering but persistently thrilling first full outing with Devil Electric; a band seemingly drawing on the inspirations of bands such as Black Sabbath, Graveyard, The Dead Weather, Jess and the Ancient Ones, and Blood Ceremony but forging their own individual incantations.
The Devil Electric album is available now via Kozmik Artifactz @ https://devilelectric.bandcamp.com/album/devil-electric
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Pete RingMaster 02/10/2017
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
