BurnWard

Posts: 5 Joined: 04 Feb 2006 Location: Boston

Post subject: Devillock - These Graves CD

Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:45 am

Devillock - These Graves CD: http://www.tonefilth.org
PACrec: http://www.iheartnoise.com
SNSE: http://www.snse.net
Audio: The Blood From

Overall Rating: B+
Composition: A-
Sounds: B+
Production Quality: B-
Concept: B+
Packaging: B

Man was I was ever excited about this project getting a pro-pressed CD. Justin Meyer’s Devillock and Tone Filth label has kept my attention non-stop since I first discovered the two. And it is safe to say that both have come a long way since the Metal Tapez releases. I thought I knew what I was getting into with this one- the unmistakable high pitch tape screams and organ tones that I have grown to know and love. Turns out the CD for the most part is nothing like the old days of Devillock, in fact I might even dare to call it a death-industrial record at parts.

These Graves opens with the 14 minute track The Blood From, which creates a lo-fi brooding atmosphere made up of crawling dirty drones that erupt into scathing high-pitched mess. The audio equivalent of waking up to a flashlight right in the eyes. The second and fourth tracks, These Graves and On Rotten Creatures, are little one-minute tie over excursions made up of low-end tar pit gurgles that sound almost like Black Mayonnaise minus the bass and drum machine and hazy drones. The third track, Weigh Forever, is another one clocking in just over 14 minutes. This time the atmosphere isn’t quite as muddy. Now we start to hear the old Devillock come through a bit more. Maddening buzzy drones over top of lo-fi hums and the sound of dying tapes..

While this disc is a major departure from the older Devillock sound it still maintains the same overall aesthetic both musically and visually. We still get gross scribbly splatter art and piercing high-end metallic drones. The perfectly matched sound and aesthetic of the early releases created fantastic imagery of wobbly deformed beasts with oversized tusks. Now, These Graves provides the soundtrack to visiting the swamp of tapes and screen printing ink those horrid beasts crawled out from.

Take all the fun stuff that most musicians spend countless hours trying to fix- toasted cables, tape hiss, line hum; fry it all up and serve it on a CD courtesy of the fine folks at PACrec and SNSE. The packaging is your standard PACrec affair of a nicely printed slipcase and nothing more. I wish there was something else tossed in there- a piece of paper or something to provide more artwork space, but what can you do. While Devillock has come a long way from its gross roots I like the direction it is heading. Just shortly before the release of These Graves SNSE also unleashed a pro-pressed CD for Meyer’s side project Panther Skull which has typically been on the more ambient side. It seems to me that the old Devillock and Panther Skull tapes may be all melting slowly but surely into one massive disgusting monster. Personally, I can’t wait to see what sort of horrors it unleashes.
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I'm ghetto like the digitech death metal pedal.