When Dez and his friends launched the first Devildriver album in 2003, I was blown away completely. I followed the band thoroughly in their metal career, but when the last record The Last Kind Words appeared to be kind of disappointing, it seemed my interest in the band slowly disappeared. Now they’ve returned with a new full length entitled Pray For Villains, let’s see if this turns things around again.

The band’s formula is still unchanged, groovy and melodic metal that every mainstream metal kid can get into. Sometimes brutal, sometimes melodic, always grooving. Luckily the brutality is taken up a few notches again compared to the previous record, more headbang riffs instead of emotional stuff.  The biggest change with this record lies within Dez’ vocals, which seem to cover even more ground than before. His charismatic voice still works like a charm and he manages to exploit it even better on Pray For Villains.

 

The records holds enough dynamics and variation to keep it reasonably interesting, although I personally have to say that after listening to it ten times I’m most likely done with it. This kind of easy to digest metal gets old real fast for me, but for kids just getting into the style of music this might just be the medicine they need. Also fans of the band can pick this up blindly, it again holds an excellent production just waiting to blast through your speakers. Tight and brutal yet still melodic, mainstream headbang metal for the masses.