27th May 2022

Review: “Bury Your Demons” by Where the Devil

“Like many new bands, we’ve been through some changes since we first hit the scene. I’ve been the primary songwriter in that time with five of the six singles handled primarily by me, musically speaking – and these tracks capture that period in time. We’ve now got Remi [Wilson, Guitar] and Hamish [Unahi, Bass] in the band, both of whom can write killer riffage. So, the next chapter of Where the Devil may be quite different, sonically …or maybe not. We don’t know yet. But that’s exciting.” ~ Guitarist Ben Hosking

While it might not be plainly obvious to some Metal heads, the way in which some bands choose release their music has evolved with different strategies in play at varying times, depending on various factors. Put simply gone are the days when a bands only option is to pre-release a trio of singles and music videos before dropping an album and getting on the road. One of those strategies is the waterfall release, whereby a string of singles are released over a far longer duration, say 12 months before the final EP or album is dropped. A common duration might be 12 months, with one track dropping a month before the album finally appears, perhaps with a limited physical run and all of this born out of the arrival of streaming services. One band who are using this method are Hunter Valley Australian five-piece Where the Devil who have built their audience starting in 2020 with the release of first single “Beast“. Showcasing an amalgamation of ‘90s and ‘00s influences with a hybrid blend of Groove orientated Metalcore, each of the six tracks of their debut EP “Bury Your Demons” has already been released, amassing the better part of 29k of Spotify Streams before the physical release has appeared…

Putting the rights and wrongs of strategies aside, with “Bury Your Demons“, Where the Devil have given us six solid pieces of hard to pigeon hole Metal, mixing elements of Groove, Thrash and Nu-Metal with a melodic sensibility all held together by Ben Pennifold’s intense vocals. There is a narrative of a broken relationship underneath that runs through the veins of these songs. touching on subjects like mental heath issues caused by the distortion of ones view of reality when someone is leading you a merry dance of lies. While that subject matter has been the backbone of plenty of other bands releases in the past, here it has more weight and gravity due to the gritty nature of the vocal performance, particularly on “Misery” which finds the band at their most melodic with aching and emotive clean vocal parts sandwiched between a scream along chorus. But the band are far from a one trick pony and go in hard and heavy with clear Pantera influences on the rampaging “Descending Death“, the perfect circle pit starter for the live shows and one of the stand out cuts here. Recorded, mixed and mastered by James Strezov at Studio 1618, even if these cuts weren’t all recorded at the same time, they sound as if they were with a good follow between them, matching guitar tones and drum sound. These cuts are also timeless in the sense that this record could have been released at any point in the past three decades and still sounded current; in part thanks to the bands sonic style choices, the spoken word part of “Beaten Down Broken Crown” being a fine example. The groove heavy finale that is “Beast” ensures the quality of the record remains high, the false ending before bringing back the bloodthirsty tirade sheer class. An uncomplicated pummelling good listen that despite its serious lyrical content is actually really good fun [7/10]

Track Listing