Dark Music Review – Devil is Fine
Review Written By Casey Douglass
Imagine this: Django sacrifices a goat on stage while intimidating slave chants roar and screeching guitar riffs burn in the background. Then the rhythmic chain rattling evoking a satanic summoning makes way for the eerily familiar melodies of Norwegian black metal.
What do you get if you
cross the spirituals of a slave chain gang and black metal? You get
something like Zeal and Ardor’s Devil is Fine, a creation
that adopts aspects of each style, makes some creative twists, and
then puts them back together again to birth something that is quite
brilliant. And I almost missed out on it.
I’d heard some of the
info about Zeal and Ardor, checked out a little bit of title
track Devil is Fine and decided it didn’t really click with me. In
my ignorance however, I didn’t pay attention to the fact that the
chain gang spirituals' words had been changed to worship the devil
rather than god. It was a few weeks later and a revealing interview
read in Metal Hammer that sent me scurrying back to YouTube for
another look at the video. I bought the album on my next trip into
town, and I have well and truly clicked with it now.
Devil is Fine
makes great use of the associated elements of a chain gang, from the
distinctive soulful vocals to the clinking of chains and the clapping
of hands to add rhythm. From the metal side of the camp, frenetic
strumming, tortured notes and the recognisable sound of the classic
metal roar are all used to great effect. Come on Down is a track that
is a prime example of this. Beginning with the lyric “I can’t see
no devil in the field” a few repetitions later, it’s joined by
the artfully played notes of an electric guitar and the
aforementioned roar, before quietening again and shortly after giving
way to a seriously ear-wormy “oooh ooh ooooh” backing vocal. This
is something a few tracks on the album do very well, the slow build
and release of an audio roller coaster.
Another reason that I
found myself warming very quickly to Devil is Fine is that I
have an immediate interest in anything that adopts the tone of devil
worship, from books set in Hell to other bands (see Ghost). As far as
Devil is Fine, the slaves are turning to Satan as an act of
turning away from their Christian captors. Manuel Gagneux, the
creator of Zeal and Ardor, spent a lot of time researching the occult
to get things right in this regard. The artwork on the front features
real slave Robert Smalls and the logo over this is the Sigil of
Lucifer.
The words used in the
lyrics on Devil is Fine just get to me in that sacrilegious
way, but none more so than those found in Blood in the River:
(Backed by chains
clanking and echoing beat):
“A good god is a dead
one,
a good god is the one
that brings the fire.”
And:
“A good lord is a
dark one.
a good lord is the one
that brings the fire.
the riverbed will run
red with the blood of the saints and the blood of the holy”.
I mean, holy shit,
you’ll find no punches pulled here, and I love it, all added to by
the heft of a metal core.
There are other
surprises on Devil is Fine such as more electronic-based
tracks to break things up, a xylophone/glockenspiel type music box
quality to Children’s Summon, and a final track that seems to be
the audio equivalent of candy floss, something seemingly light but
still hinting at sadness (particularly in
the case of real candy floss, when you could have eaten something far
more tasty than flippin’ candyfloss).
Devil is Fine is
a more than fine album (aha!). It’s not very long, which only left
me wanting more, although it does lend itself to easy repeat
listening due to it’s brevity. If you like the subject matter and
music styles involved, you should can check it out here. You can also
check out Come On Down below:
Album Title: Devil is
Fine
Artist: Zeal and Ardor
Released: 1 March 2017
Label: Radicalis, MVKA
Music