Devotion is the new project of Go It Alone vocalist Mark Palm. With the help of Get The Most and ON drummer Aaron O'Neil Palm recorded 10 songs which are released on vinyl by Rivalry.
Recordopeners 'My Desert' and 'Iron Fist' don't stray too far away from the Go It Alone sound and could easily have been on the bands' last album 'Histories'.
But Palm did Devotion solo for a reason, it's his outlet and without bandmates he didn't have to compromise. The song 'Bastard Son Of Affluence Blues' is the first showing of that vision beginning with a hardrock orientated intro before evolving in a hardcore song.
Throughout the record there are hints here and there of different styles being incorporated in Palms' trademark sound of slow melodic hardcore.
It's on the B-side of the record that Palm tends to stretch this even further. 'Needle Full Of Liquid Pain' and 'Out Of Body' being songs that remind of 'Dirt'-era Alice In Chains with some early Soundgarden references.
'Stained Glass Bottle', the last track, brings it all together and sounds like a very natural combination of hardcore, grunge and even southern rock.
Go It Alone already showed Palms' gift for writing lyrics and with Devotion he stepped up to the plate. The main themes of the record are Catholicism, isolation, apathy and addiction all served on a very cynical and realistic plate. Palm himself summarizes it best with the lines 'The cross and the bottle offer no escape for me. Left to wonder: will I ever find peace? I haven't found it yet.'
Devotion isn't the only band nowadays with roots in hardcore incorporating grunge (Blacklisted anyone?). Yet on 'Bastard Son Of Affluence Blues' it is done in a very natural way which makes this one of the most progressive records staying within hardcore bounderies and one of the best records to come out this year.
2 comments:
I may have to check this out at some point, but to be honest, there is very little in this review that has me excited to check it out. All I can really think about is Mike Judge doing Old Smoke. Ha!
Hope all is well with you my friend.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
Post a Comment