DevilDriver
Pray for Villains

THE REVIEW

As soon as it was released, DevilDriver's latest offering left me quite disappointed, but since it's a fairly long and not very immediate album (at least compared to the previous ones), I decided to give it some time. In recent days, I decided to give it another chance, and as I revisited it, the situation, if possible, worsened, confirming the album as a real disappointment.

After a penultimate great album like "The Last Kind Words" and two bangers like "DevilDriver" and "The Fury of Our Maker's Hand" behind them, you expect yet another slam in the face, the kind you remember, one of those albums you memorize after a few weeks of intense listening.

None of that in "Pray for Villains". Listing the tracks this time, even though we're in a review, seems really pointless to me because I'm asking myself: what are the tracks that really stick (an essential feature of DevilDriver's albums), whether for better or worse? None.

"Pray For Villains" is an excessively long, muddle of 13 empty tracks where very little is redeemable and much has changed compared to the past and expectations (at least mine). One element above all is almost unrecognizable: it's him, Dez, the ex-singer of Coal Chamber, has never been so uninspired, a performance almost by inertia, both a singer and an album that feel like going through the motions, hastily put together just to fill the tour bus and claim to have a freshly minted album to promote.

On a local level, the situation is even worse instrumentally: anonymous riffs, a rhythm section of devastating blandness, solos too laden with melody, up to the limits of "The Last Kind Words". The latter was all fine, but this time the sound that wants to seem aggressive clashes completely with the overly Maiden-esque guitar influences. Between speed and violence pointlessly flaunted because they're not supported by good songwriting (like the initial title track) and tracks where DevilDriver play at being poor man's In Flames (I think of "Bitter Pill" or "I've Been Sober"), perhaps only the opening of "Fate Stepped In" and the outburst of the final "I See Belief" are salvageable from the chaos, really too little.

After a trio of fireworks, Dez Fafara's DevilDriver face a true and proper failure, sure maybe one star is too little (those who have never heard DevilDriver before might even dare a 2-3 stars rating) but for me, who have followed the band since the beginning, it was a nasty surprise. Let's hope for the next work, which should already be in writing and seems it will return to the sound of the self-titled first album (at least that's what they say in interviews). Fingers crossed.