Devoid

Mumbai-based thrashers Devoid’s debut album has been a long time coming, and A God’s Lie abridges their six years on the scene into one straight-up mid-tempo thrash album. The album opens with a mandatory acoustic intro, the beautiful ”˜A Silent Death,’ which would have done better without the ambient sound effects. Old favourites ”˜Black Fortress’ and ”˜Battlecry’ get updated here, with the new production stripping away the murk and giving both songs more volume and body but their more recent live thumper ”˜Kali’ is conspicuous by its absence here.  ”˜Possessed’ opens with an inexplicable intro before devolving into standard thrash and doesn’t give you much to remember it by. The energy really picks up on ”˜Black Fortress’ and continues on pinch-harmonics heavy ”˜Hate Cult’ destined to be a future crowd favourite with its fist waving refrain. The slower paced title track occasionally veers into prog-thrash territory before bonus track ”˜Beersong’ gets the energy going again. The pitfall with straight-up thrash is that songs do sometimes tend to sound similar and Devoid does fall into that trap in a few places but overall they manage to distinguish most songs with some judicious use of solos, spoken word passages and chant-worthy choruses. Give it a few listens for it to grow on you.

Key Tracks: ”˜Black Fortress,’ ”˜Hate Cult’