Isolation periods are favourable to musicians, as Devolution shows it.
Created in 2020 by Clément Roig (chant/instruments, Antropofago, Opprobre, Sunnudagr), the project chose to melt Black and Death Metal on Consumer, its first album.
With its eight songs, the album develops an interesting contrast between Death Metal’s raw strength and Black Metal’s dissonant ambiences, as we can see on Aux Portes du Vide. The sound’s coldness is melted to greasy and violent riffs, just like on Le Poids du Jugement, a song that develops a quite complementary and rich duality. Howlings appear on this fight of influences, that also sometimes unveils more patterns, then oppression comes on De l’Etincelle à la Conflagration, a smashing and dark song that never denies this effective and strong basis made of blasts. Mystical influences introduce us Au Crépuscule de l’Humanité, the next track, where heaviness, oppression and dissonance fight again under wild howlings that tell a raw poetry, looking at our world’s despair, before the energetic Déliquescence and its hooking patterns. Catchy riffs sometimes give birth to melancholic melodies, then Vestiges melts again heaviness and soaring leads for an interesting contrast that also picks into Doom/Death. Oppression gets strengthened with Écimer l’Âme, a quite majestic song that also places itself into some dirty and unhealthy Black Metal influences, while Chaos Cérébral, the last song, reconnects with Death Metal’s pure aggressiveness and adds some sharp parts.
Devolution’s melting is unhealthy, strong and above all very effective. Consumer unveils solid riffs, airy leads, catchy patterns and bestial howlings, while adding more majestic parts, creating an extreme contrast we like to listen to.
90/100