I always find it a bit odd when bands are named after place names. Perhaps this quintet from Switzerland sat on the beach with a cream tea in our delightful SW county and felt inspired, maybe their name has a deeper meaning entirely. Anyway that out the way and onto the task at hand. What we have here is a short 4 track EP of post-rock. There’s very little more to say about the band apart from the fact they have a picture on their Facebook looking like a sensible bunch and the fact that these tracks were chosen by them to best represent their musical identity. I’m guessing that means they probably have an album on the way.
This is not the sort of music I normally listen to at home although it’s not unusual to be at a mixed festival and find at least one band on the bill that sound exactly like Devon. Perhaps it’s a constricted sub-genre, maybe it’s me but with bands like this I find they all pretty much blur into each other. It’s an instrumental ‘Tulsa’ (yep another place name) that Devon kick off with. Slowly ebbing in, guitars take up a jangling refrain and things gradually build up, my head nods, toes tap and if I had a beard I would no doubt be stroking it as it meanders on. Just as it begins to get monotonous extra layers are added and the tuneful melodicism begins to get under the skin. There’s a bit of weight behind it as the guitars flurry away and there’s nothing particularly wrong with this other than the fact it’s a bit bland for my tastes. ‘Krash’ is hardly explosive either but does add some clean vocals and although I’m looking for something good to say here the overall feel is dull even when the band crank it up a bit. The singing is emotive and it all coasts along. I find myself waiting for violence and fury and as the drums begin to bristle it does eventually deliver the goods with some rugged and guttural roars and abruptly downs tools and stops just as we are getting somewhere (doh). So it continues via definite light shades on next track ‘IJ’ taking an age to hit the surge and an adrenaline rush but at least this time letting it hit furiously for a bit longer and adding a belligerent texture to the music. Last up on this is ‘Tattoo’ which tries to indelibly ink an impression on me. I can appreciate the skill at the heart of it and the band have a strong melodic thrust and play well again building slowly and finally unleashing the violent side of things. Live I may even be grooving away and appreciating it more but on the whole this did little to move me and I certainly would not go out my way to hear more.
(6/10 Pete Woods)
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