DevilDriver - Winter Kills (2013)

DevilDriver is California metal band that comes with strong grooving thus providing their base to be called groove metal. The leader is Dez Fafara of Coal Chamber band. In DevilDriver the music seems to be pushed far to the most aggresive zone, a mix of death-thrash-groove is patent deadly. As they are very close to the nu-metal scene, the nu-metal play is throw in to added more punch on several occasion. Winter Kills is their sixth studio album, the band still with most of member since 2003 except for bassist Chris Towning.

The opening title Oath of the Abyss is kind of a blast. Promising the next hour to be extreme hard for your neck. It's tight with riffs, lot of drum syncopation all to provided highway for that flat-growling vocals. All the same thing can be said again to the next coming track, Ruthless, although this time the band take a good time to developed the intro and then convert it into 'standard' death groove metal song. In Desperate Times, elements of nu-metal is borrowed, the rap-style growl singing in that song is vicious. Winter Kills comes next, the title album song itself didn't differed much from the three songs we just listen. Next, The Appetite is offering more energy and creativity with very groovy vocal line. It's a jungle of solid riffs around in the middle of the album, the band plays more attention to give variation on each intro, something like a calm before storm pattern on Curses And Epitataphs and Haunting Refrain.

In overall this is a hard stuff of groove metal all blanketed with combative riffs from each guitarist. The vocal itself sounds flat through out the album, but the complexity of each song neutralize this weakness. If you looking for a solid time of headbanging thrash-death-nu-groove combination, a Pantera vs Slayer things, grab this now.

Metal Harem class: ******** eight stars out of ten

DevilDriver - Winter Kills (2013)
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01. Oath of the Abyss (5:37)
02. Ruthless (4:10)
03. Desperate Times (4:10)
04. Winter Kills (4:55)
05. The Appetite (4:46)
06. Gutted (3:30)
07. Curses And Epitaphs (5:07)
08. Carings Overkill (4:34)
09. Haunting Refrain (5:01)
10. Tripping Over Tombstones (3:38)
11. Sail (4:07)
12. Shudder (Bonustracks) (4:06)
13. Back Down To The Grave (Bonustracks) (4:46)

Dez Fafara – lead vocals
Jeff Kendrick – guitar
John Boecklin – drums
Mike Spreitzer – guitar
Chris Towning – bass

Technical personnel
Mark Lewis – production
Dean Karr – cover art photography
Ryan Clark – cover art layout

DevilDriver Winter Kills album review