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Review Summary: DevilDriver release their Fifth album with a meaty punch to the stomach. Fans of DevilDriver will be impressed, and first-time listeners will be unsure. However many in the metal community will feel this is a good move in the right direction for DevilDriver. In short 'Beast' is faster and heavier than its pre-deccessor 'Pray For Villians' at the cost of quality song-writing ability. The tracks on 'Beast' sure are the brutal sound of DevilDriver but the tracks musically start to sound re-cycled and the lyrics almost overly repetitive.
Writing off this album as poor would be completely un-truthful and unfair to both the band and its listeners, and there are stand-out tracks including album opener 'Dead To Rights'. This track instantly highlights the mood of the rest of the album, the guitar lines are creative, heavy and at times melodic, while the drumming is quick, with interesting beats and fills. The bass guitar however blends underneath the rest of the music and is relatively un-noticeable without a quality set of speakers and the vocals are nothing new, they remain consistant, just your standard DevilDriver.
For the most part, the album blends together losing certain levels of interest for the listeners. Ideas can be found from previous albums including the track 'Talons Out (Teeth Sharpened)' with the guitar 'wah effect' and the riffs reminiscent of their debut album.
A noticeable positive of this album is the inclusion of the melodic guitar solos which include various sweeps, bends and other techniques to keep DevilDriver's guitar-based fans enthusiastic, while the drum work while not overly fast will provide a technical challenge for those who want to learn songs off this album.
There are various low-points of the album including how the tracks begin to blend into each other making tracks sound recycled, and the annoying use of echoed vocal lines that are overly used in too-many tracks of the album.
The production of 'Beast' however is top-notch in sound quality however the bass guitar is lost in most tracks without a good set of speakers. The album overall may not have a higher level of playability for most of the metal community, but fans of DevilDriver will find themselves coming back to this album a lot for tracks like 'Black Soul Choir' which has an interesting and catchy rhyming effect not heard in most DevilDriver tracks.
"Every mans a liar" with "Black Soul Choir" making this another highlight of the album.
Diversity is shown with the return of an instrumental jazz themed section during the song a theme which known from 'The Last Kind Words' which not unusual for DevilDriver adds a refreshing change for listeners.
'Beast' also comes as a special edition album including a DVD documentory of the history of the band and bonus tracks. These bonus tracks include 'Lost' which musically includes interesting chromatic runs, riffs and melodies, whilst the track 'Fortune Favours The Brave' which builds from technical sounding 'riffage' and drum-beats including some blast-beating and 'galloping' bass-drum work.
Highlights Include:
Dead To Rights
Black Soul Choir
Fortune Favours The Brave (Bonus Track)
| other reviews of this album |
Metalstyles (3.5)
A beastly record that features moments of brilliance, but is also somewhat inconsistent...
BassDemon333 (3.5)
DevilDriver take a look back at their discography and combine all of the elements of their sound thr...
LegionOfTheDamned (4)
Perhaps, after having appreciated this album, you'll have the same epiphany as me, and wake up to on...
Darkvoid67 (2.5)
Despite all of the blast beats, frantic guitar and nasty vocal work, Beast fails to hide the problem...
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Album Rating: 3.0
Australia Release date. 18th February 2011, dont know about the rest of the world.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
pre-deccessor
un-truthful
un-noticeable
drum-beats
blast-beating
none of these need dashes. good review though, i might post one if i have the time.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
shit, better get to writing
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I swear this album is called Beasd
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Why did you caps Fifth?
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
my bad, i do have some bad grammer habits. I apolagise in advance for anybody else.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
I was about to say that this might be deleted because of the release date, but if Australia is early fair enough. Look back over it, one or two grammar mistakes and punctuation, but inherently not a bad attempt
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
thanks, its been all i was playing yesterday, its actually the 19th here now.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Pretty decent review, doesn't flow that well though at parts.
Album's cool but not as good as Fury and The Last Kind Words were. I'll be putting up my review during next week.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
well its only my second, im still trying to find what works. Thanks for your imput though, keep the help coming.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
^^ Good to hear Metalstyles, I shall wait for your verdict before I decide to buy it, but Dead to Rights kicked ass. Wasn't a huge fan of Coldblooded or Bring the fight
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
@IpodMastery
It's just that your sentence structure is awkward at times.
Example 1: However many in the metal community will feel this is a good move in the right direction for DevilDriver. Why not just say: However, many metalheads will find that Beast is a move in the right direction for DevilDriver.
Example 2: Writing off this album as poor would be completely un-truthful and unfair to both the band and its listeners, and there are stand-out tracks including album opener 'Dead To Rights'. Be more straightforward and try to sound as confident and assuring as possible. For example: The album is by no means bad though, having a bunch of stand out tracks, such as the opener "Dead To Rights".
Example 3: The tracks on 'Beast' sure are the brutal sound of DevilDriver but the tracks musically start to sound re-cycled and the lyrics almost overly repetitive. Sentences like these are just really awkward to read. Proofreading is your friend, dude, as this sentence, for example, is not hard to tidy up at all: The tracks on Beast sure are brutal, as common for DevilDriver, but some of them sound musically recycled and Dez's lyrics are overly repetitive.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that your ideas are pretty good, but your wording needs a lot of work. Also, bigger paragraphs dude. One sentence does not work as a paragraph, unless it's like an introductionary sentence or something, and even then it better be a damn good one.
@Darkvoid
Basically, it's a great album, as my 3.5 implies, but it's not as good as Fury or The Last Kind Words, like I already said. But I won't make a spoiler, nor a trailer for my review, I shall explain it all next week haha.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
@Metalstyles
Thanks man, guess i could probably try reading this over a couple more times before hitting 'submit'.
I did try to write this in a different style to my first one, to see if it feels any better, but i think i like the writing in the RRAll-Stars style better.
Still, Thanks heaps.
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Going to see these guys along with a bunch of other awesome bands at Soundwave next week.
Devildriver's circle pits are sexy.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
@IpodMastery
No problem man, happy to help =)
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Sydney? Should see you there (Soundwave).
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
@Metalstyles, have you got any helpful hints on my other review, comparing it to this?
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I'm going to Brisbane for Soundwave actually.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Great Solos
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"crown of creation" sounds alot like unearth to me
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