Tickets are on sale from Wednesday, May 2nd at 10 am from all the usual ticket outlets priced at £20 (Belfast) and €25 (Dublin).
Going against the grain comes naturally for Devildriver. The globally-renowned California Groove Machine have been a constant and effective force in the heavy metal world for the best part of two decades now.
Thanks to widely lauded albums like 2005’s epoch-shredding The Fury Of Our Maker’s Hand, 2011’s ante-raising, ultra-brutal Beast and 2016’s acclaimed career peak Trust No One, the band led by vocalist Dez Fafara (ex-Coal Chamber) are firmly established as one of the most consistent and best-loved bands in modern metal.
Their almost psychotic dedication to the road is legendary, their mastery of the circle pit beyond dispute: but in 2018, expectations are about to be torched on the mother of all campfires. A monstrous collection of savage and slamming metal interpretations of Dez and his comrades’ favourite outlaw country songs, Outlaws ‘Til The End is both a startling curveball /and/ a ferocious statement of individuality from a band with cojones to spare.
“I think real music has always gotten to me, whether it’s the blues, outlaw country or even real Goth music like Bauhaus and Sisters Of Mercy,” Dez explains. “That stuff has always attracted me, and this is absolutely the real stuff. The blues and outlaw country are what made rock’n’roll. They were around before rock’n’roll… and in my head, I’ve always heard these songs heavy. Lyrically, these are some of the most poignant songs on the planet. So they fit the heavy genre very well… as you can hear! (laughs)”
From the opening seconds of Devildriver’s face-flaying version of Hank III’s Country Heroes (featuring the man himself on guest vocals) onwards, Outlaws ‘Til The End is simply one of the most vicious records the band have made yet. More importantly, these evocative, irresistible songs have all been wholly rebuilt from the ground up, powered by the classic Devildriver sound and embellished with Dez’s unmistakable feral roar.
Completing this unprecedented project is a host of metal and country luminaries providing unforgettable cameos: horror metal icon Wednesday 13 lends his incensed rasp to George Jones’ If Drinking Don’t Kill Me, 36 Crazyfists frontman Brock Lindow brings fire and soul to Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road and Fear Factory’s Burton C. Bell helps to turn Richard Thompson’s anti-war classic Dad’s Gonna Kill Me into a brooding gothic metal extravaganza.
Meanwhile, Lamb Of God men Randy Blythe and Mark Morton contribute to an exhilarating decimation of Willie Nelson’s Whiskey River before Randy makes a second appearance on Devildriver’s insanely brutal version of cowboy standard Ghost Riders In The Sky; the latter featuring the son of Johnny Cash himself…
Still charging forward, proudly against the grain and on the form of their lives, Devildriver have never made a record like Outlaws ‘Til The End before. But then nor has anyone else. The perfect marriage of badass country grit and neck-wrecking groove metal supremacy, it’s a pistol-packing game-changer delivered by true heavy metal outlaws.
“We knew it was going to be at least three years before the next Devildriver record, so I wanted to give people something to digest while we keep writing,” Dez concludes. “But don’t you think the scene needs a kick in the ass, man? Everybody’s kinda doing the same shit now. If you can scream, you’re in a fucking band. So we needed to shake things up a bit. This is outlaw country, Devildriver-style. And it’s fuckin’ brutal.”
Tickets for both Belfast Limelight 2 and Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre will be on sale from Ticketmaster online and retail outlets as well as Sound Cellar (Dublin). Please check out DME Promotions for further details.
Oran O’Beirne
www.overdrive.ie 2018
