Devil You Know - The Beauty Of Destruction

Published April 24 2014

*=Staff's pick	A New Beginning My Own* Embracing The Torture For The Dead And Broken Seven Years Alone* It's Over A Mind Insane Crawl From The Dark The Killer I Am The Nothing Shut It Down* As Bright As The Darkness

Genre	Metalcore	Howard Jones	Vocals
Tracks	12	Francesco Artusato	Guitar
Running time	47 Min.	Roy Lev-Ari	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Ryan Wombacher	Bass
Release	25 April 2014	John Sankey	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboard
Producer	Logan Mader
Similar artists	---

Although the actual music on The Beauty Of Destruction itself isn't a replica of lead vocalist Howard Jones' tenure with Killswitch Engage, with whom he recorded three albums, it indeed has a number of resemblances in terms of the direct approach, the vocal melodies and the type of music. Even though he didn't start this band and has a number of pretty well-known metal musicians by his side, this outcome is pretty much what I expected in order to fit the frontman's vocals and his fame in the metal community.

Jones' vocal performance is frequently pretty aggressive, yet also fairly extensive as he mixes more brutal combinations with harmonies and shows an efficient range. Although I'm brutally fed up with raging voices through the verses and clean ones to highlight the choruses, I can't deny that I mainly find the songs to be inspiring and captivating, and frankly there aren't too many tracks that follow this method with given standards, all the way to completion.

It pulsates quite rapidly in a determined vein and most songs are rather recognizable. Yet they have their own identity and the record also holds some variation. It's arresting with violent thrusts through riffs and charging punches and in contrast also with a few things of considerably less malignant character. The solo guitar absorbs my interest at certain points and the record's overall feeling infuses a storming strength.

All songs aren't total killers and the record has its valleys and pits, but the least attractive tracks, but one, are still good enough to not be considered filling material. I generally dig what I hear, without being immensely impressed by the end result of this so called debut album. It doesn't really stagnate much at any sections until it reaches the final track, but apart from that dull and inanimate ballad, this is indeed an appropriate release with vim and vigor.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	3	8	7	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tobbe