Devilstrip: ‘Gravitate’
DEVILSTRIP
GRAVITATE
Released on March 16, 2018 (Broken Road Records)
Review:
Devilstrip remind me of a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. You can try time and time again but the square peg will never fit into the round hole. While the band advertises itself as “original hard rock”, I find that the group’s music seems closer to alternative hard rock with some Rage Against The Machine anger at times and kind of similar to Live‘s Throwing Copper (my very short stint into the alternative rock / grunge world). When I first heard Gravitate, I had a hard time getting through it. The clangy sounding guitar got on my nerves and the songs seemed to be different than the best tracks on their previous album Rise. After a few more listens, Gravitate became tolerable and pretty soon, I started enjoying it because the songs overall are well crafted.
Unfortunately, while I do enjoy Gravitate, it just feels like a different genre of music than what I would usually listen to or gravitate (pun intended) to. The first two tracks “Snakebite” and especially “Testify” are the best songs on Gravitate — hands down. They have more aggressiveness than any of the other tracks and in the case of “Testify”, a pretty strong chorus. Unlike the songs on Rise, which tended to feel like various ideas had been mish-mashed together into one song including the standout song “Go”, Gravitate shows a consistency and maturity in the songwriting in that each song has a nice flow and all the tracks fit well together on the record.
Odds are that if you really love one song on Gravitate, you’ll love the rest of the tracks given that they all seem to follow the same blueprint sound wise. Of course, if you’re not into one of the songs, odds are that you won’t like the rest of them. Unfortunately, the further you get into the album, the slower paced that the tunes seem to get. Taking a page from Metallica, Devilstrip have released a lyric video for each of the ten songs on Gravitate so you can hear the entire record below. Although I am sure that they exist, I am not aware of any “alternative rock” websites (since I don’t follow that genre) who likely would be quite excited to hear Gravitate and I think that there is a rock n’ roll market that would likely appreciate Devilstrip‘s new studio album way more than this sleaze rock loving metalhead. You can try to squeeze that square peg into the round hole as much as you want but it’ll never get in no matter how hard you try.
Track List:
01. Snakebite
02. Testify
03. Gravitate
04. Skin
05. Silent
06. Came To Fight
07. Bitter
08. Catch My Breath
09. Rider
10. Water (Conversations With The Sun)
Band Members:
Marc Wasmund – lead vocals, guitar
Graig Lindgren – bass
Jimmy Gray – drums
Additional Musicians:
Micah Posten – vocals
Curran Murphy – guitars
Rick Palmer – drums
Production:
Co-produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Curran Murphy
Band Websites:
Official Website
Facebook
Reviewed by Olivier for Sleaze Roxx, September 2018
Devilstrip‘s “Snakebite” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Snakebite’ – Official Lyric Video
From Devilstrip’s second album GRAVITATE, this is ‘Snakebite’.Album available now:Apple Music/iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gravitate/1358448522Am…
Devilstrip‘s “Testify” video:
Devilstrip – ‘Testify’ – Official Lyric Video
The first single off of Devilstrip’s second album GRAVITATE, this is ‘Testify’.
Devilstrip‘s “Gravitate” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Gravitate’ – Official Lyric Video
From Devilstrip’s second album GRAVITATE, this is the title track ‘Gravitate’.Album available now:Apple Music/iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gravit…
Devilstrip‘s “Skin” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Skin’ – Official Lyric Video
From Devilstrip’s second album GRAVITATE, this is ‘Skin’.Album available now:Apple Music/iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gravitate/1358448522Amazon:…
Devilstrip‘s “Came To Fight” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Came to Fight’ – Official Lyric Video
From Devilstrip’s second album GRAVITATE, this is ‘Came to Fight’. We’d like to dedicate this song and lyric video to all the men and women of the United Sta…
Devilstrip‘s “Silent” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Silent’ – Official Lyric Video
From Devilstrip’s second album GRAVITATE, this is ‘Silent’.Album available now:Apple Music/iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gravitate/1358448522Amazo…
Devilstrip‘s “Bitter” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Bitter’ – Official Lyric Video
Album available now:Apple Music/iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gravitate/1358448522Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BDRGW35/ref=dm_ws_sp…
Devilstrip‘s “Catch My Breath” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Catch my breath’ – Official Lyric Video
Album available now:Apple Music/iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gravitate/1358448522Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BDRGW35/ref=dm_ws_sp…
Devilstrip‘s “Rider” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Rider’ – Official Lyric Video
From Devilstrip’s second album GRAVITATE, this is ‘Rider’.Album available now:Apple Music/iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gravitate/1358448522Amazon…
Devilstrip‘s “Water (Conversation With The Sun)” lyric video:
Devilstrip – ‘Water (conversations with the sun)’ – Official Lyric Video
From Devilstrip’s second album GRAVITATE, this is ‘Water (conversations with the sun)’.Album available now:Apple Music/iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/alb…