Album Review: Beast by DevilDriver

Technical brutality and pure fucking class Whenever the name DevilDriver crops up in conversation, the inevitable catalyst for discussion will be memories of a borderline psychopath with face tattoos working his audience with terrifying clarity, enticing endless circle-pits out of those who simply want to bang their heads. Less likely is that talk will turn to tales of virtuoso musicianship, of utterly absorbing, coruscating cavalcades of heavy metal thunder, but now five albums into a career which has garnered the band much respect, if not full-on admiration, Dez Fafara and co are redressing the balance. So, whilst previous records may have been deliriously heavy, for the most part they lacked the hallmarks of a truly exceptional band.

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When DevilDriver rose from the ashes of Coal Chamber, many people expected the same mainstream performance of heavy music that frontman Dez Fafara had used in his former band. Those expectations were fully eliminated by the time DevilDriver’s second album, 2005’s The Fury of Our Maker’s Hand, stormed onto the scene. It was clear that DevilDriver was a completely separate and undeniably superior band, with their no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners approach to metal.

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Although he was once the leader of makeup-wearing nu metallists Coal Chamber, singer/screamer Dez Fafara has opted to keep things 100 percent aggro/extreme metal with DevilDriver, a band that reached its fifth release overall with 2011's Beast. DevilDriver's roster consists mainly of dudes with long stringy hair, manly-man facial hair, and tattoos -- and, unsurprisingly, the group's music goes hand in hand with its look throughout Beast, as the album is a nonstop barrage of screaming, growling, riffing, and rat-a-tat-tat drumming. And the song titles certainly reflect the ferociousness of the music, as exemplified by "Bring the Fight (To the Floor)," "Hardened," "Shitlist," "You Make Me Sick," and "Talons Out (Teeth Sharpened).

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