What we have here is a rooty, rocking doom metal album. By listening to it, it's a surprise that Devil Electric do not come from murky and rainy British, but from scorched and distant Australia.

In a way, Devil Electric remind me of Cathedral in their variety and genre mixing, even though it's not that wide on this debut album as UK's finest's work (which happened during a course of many albums, except for magnifecent melting pot 'Caravan Beyond Redemption' [1998]). Sometimes, like on 'Lady Velvet', the band really manages to dive into deep Black Sabbath throb, and then 'Lilith' is DE's 'Planet Caravan'. The bluesy, Earthy trait of the band is like some Maryland, USA's Clutch mixed in. Another US band that the song number two, 'Shadowman' kind of reminds me, is Queens Of The Stone Age... Which does not really suit my ears! My least favourite song here. Anyway, that's just not what the band mainly does on this album, thankfully. The band doesn't sound too witchy or psychedelic at all. It's as late as track four where they really get to upper atmosphere of the planet, and even a bit further.

How the band sounds like, then? The bass is huge and rumbling. The guitars are rather heavily distorted, more or less reverbed, and mainly not as fucking heavy as the fucking heavy bass guitar. Expect loads of riffs and soloing! The drums boom and hiss beautifully. The band's playing is soulful and also characteristic at times and the production job is flesh 'n' blood, not plastic at all. It feels authentic and old school in a good way.

Now comes the wild card that Devil Electric holds: vocals of Pierina O'Brien. Her voice is very lucid and clear. She doesn't sound like an evil witch at all, but she surely has her joker cards and aces up her sleeves... Does it fit into the music? Yeah, I think so, but I bet that is not how some people sees it. But it's a nice change from anything typical.

This is a good debut full-length excursion into sonics of days of the yore. However, I am sure, that the band can, and hopefully will, conjure up more magickal, wicked aural voyages.

Rating: 6½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
10/12/2017 19:55