DevilDriver are to metal what meat and potatoes are to the culinary experience: they’re always there. They’re reliable. But, on occasion, they evolve. They become Steak Maman Blanc with sautéed potatoes.
‘The Fury of Our Maker’s Hand’, ‘Pray For Villains’ and ‘Beast’, for the most part, sprinkled DevilDriver’s groove-laden spuds with something special. Album seven, ‘Trust No One’, teeters between posh potatoes and canned goods.
The groove is still there. Alongside Gojira and Lamb of God, DevilDriver have taken the stomping rhythm laid down by Metallica and Machine Head in the ‘90s and sharpened it. Fattened it up.
Newbie Austin D'Amond intersperses hi-hat tinkles with blast beats on Bad Deeds, This Deception and the title track, making space for those wiry, flowing guitar lines.
Mike Spreitzer teams up with another new recruit, Neal Tiemann, to craft dizzying dual-guitar parts throughout Testimony Of Truth, and latter-day In Flames will be kicking themselves once they hear it. Sure, there’s no Jeff Kendrick six-string wizardry anymore, but the band should be commended for not chasing former glories. These aren’t the most memorable melodies DevilDriver have ever conjured, but maybe they had other things on their minds.
They’re certainly heavier. Most of this record is ‘Beast’, and beyond, levels of heavy. There’s a breakdown during the title track that could’ve been recorded by Gojira and Retribution’s intro and verses boast this asset, too. This Deception features a drum fill that’ll make you want to bite your own face off, and D’Amond keeps DevilDriver’s spine intact throughout while Dez Fafara roars over the racket.
And he’s pissed. Like, really pissed. The album’s called ‘Trust No One’ and that’s basically all you need to know in terms of its lyrical focus. Fafara’s seething, unique screams are still the band’s main identifier and he’s not mellowed with age, instead opting to condemn all the dickheads in his life through the medium of song. Which makes for great metal, really. There’s even a cheeky nu metal “One, two, fuck you” thrown in for good measure on Above It All.
The title track and Daybreak’s final chorus are proper winners that wrangle with the band’s ‘Pray For Villains’-era material but, aside from those moments, ‘Trust No One’ is too samey to battle the best of DevilDriver’s back catalogue. It’s all flicked to one setting: kill. This is 10 tracks of glorious, trimmed-down groove metal that will best serve its purpose in the live arena. They’re not as immediate, varied or catchy as they could be, but every single song could, and should, be pitted to. ‘Trust No One’ is still a meat and potatoes affair, but so what? Loads of people love meat and potatoes, especially when they’re cooked to this standard.
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