Released: June 2010
Over the course of their EP series, The Devil Rides Out established themselves as masters of the grooving heavy rock vibe, gradually refining their art until the gloriously raw and gritty "Volume III" from nigh on two years ago. After taking out the WAMi Award for Best Hard Rock Act and doing shows with bands like Monster Magnet and Clutch, The Devil has now unleashed a full-length that should elevate them to the very pinnacle of Australia's rock pile.
The Heart & The Crown is a mammoth collection of rock powered by enormously fuzzed out guitar, booming drums and a voice that won't just strip paint from the walls but bring the plaster with it. "Watch it Burn" kicks in with a gigantic bouncing riff and a bottomed-out sludginess not heard since Kyuss crawled out of Sky Valley and before you can recover The Devil cranks up a gear into the endless roadtrip of "Broken White Line". "Hard Love" sounds every bit like its title would suggest, as if ZZ Top turned evil and had John Bonham as a drummer. Joey K's sinister, rumbling snarl in this track is astounding. After that, we're back on the road with the high-gear "Right Lane Man" and if this track was a truck you would get right the fuck out of the way. Only four tracks in and The Heart & The Crown is like a bare-knuckle brawl between bikies and truckies at the sleaziest roadside bar on earth. Production-wise, it isn't as raw as the previous releases, but that just makes the guitar sound fatter and has the drums rattling the window-frames. The groove-laden blues swagger is the perfect frame for Joey's tales of world-weary, loner anger.
Following the intensity of the opening salvos, the title track is rather ponderous, but also somewhat of a relief that allows the listener to take a breather before The Devil cranks up again with "Inheritance". Into the back half of the album and K's lyrics shift toward social commentary with the sardonic anti-terrorism diatribe "Gentlemen Prefer Bombs" and equally ascerbic cuts like "The New Idle" and "Ain't No Music in the Money". The enormous groove of closer "Lost Town" ends things the way they began: huge guitars, thunderous drums and that extraordinarily sinister vocal rasp.
Anyone looking for the monstrous fuzz of Cathedral or Kyuss crossed with the caustic venom of Crowbar and Eyehategod should find exactly what they're after with The Heart & the Crown. It's a riff-monster just waiting to eat your soul.
- Watch it Burn
- Broken White Line
- Hard Love
- Right Lane Man
- The Heart & the Crown
- Inheritance
- Phosphorous
- Gentleman Prefer Bombs
- The New Idle
- Mean Season
- Ain't No Music in the Money
- I Keep Secrets
- Lost Town
Rating: 86%
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