Devout - Love For The Unusual

Devout is a Spanish band formed in 2009 and the album I am about to review is their debut album, called 'Love For The Unusual'. At first glance, it might appear to be an Old School EBM kind of band, but if you look a bit closer, there are some clear electro like features as well. It got the heavy pounding bass and clean sounds of the Old School, but somehow a bit less testosterone and a bit more emotions from the electro sphere. It is a fine mix between them both.

There's a few things that the band need to improve to climb ever further in the ladder of greatness. First, the pronunciation of words need some focus, it's not so bad it is disturbing, but I am probably a bit worn off by bad pronounced English from all German bands over the years, still, I would like to have a bit less dialect.

Secondly, there's simply no hit track on this album. It is a collection of good tracks, but nothing that really stands out. I'm looking for that one or several track that really stands out and force you to remember them in the long run. I'm not saying that it is as simple as saying "oh, we forgot about making hits, we will do one for our next release", but I feel that it is easy to forget the tracks as soon as you pull your earphones out.

Third, if you are going to do a cover, please include some personal touch to it. Devout's cover of Depeche Mode's "Behind The Wheel" is more of a karaoke version than a cover. It's a good track, but it is more because of the greatness of Depeche Mode than the cover. But now I am just nitpicking.

Let's head over to the positive aspects shall we? First, I'm impressed by how mature this album feels. Before I checked it out, I could have sworn this could not be a debut album. It does not feel as desperate as many debut albums do. It feels thought trough.

The general quality of the production and songs is good. That means their lowest point is pretty high, unfortunately, I want their high point to be even higher. Songs worth checking out is "Fragility", "Zombienation" and "Game of Light".

Through and through, a good collection of tracks and with some improvements for their second album, they can do something really good. Mar 08 2011