The Beauty of Destruction

Album review

On The Beauty of Destruction, a team of metalcore veterans team up to bring their considerable musical might to bear on the maiden voyage of their supergroup, Devil You Know. Made up of members of Fear Factory, All Shall Perish, Bleeding Through, and Blood Has Been Shed, the group's pedigree puts it solidly in the realm of high-intensity heaviness. With groups like these, there's often the danger of the project coming across as half-baked, but even from the opening moments of The Beauty of Destruction, it's clear Devil You Know aren't just putzing around in the studio for fun. Right out of the gate, "A New Beginning" comes storming out of the gate with every intention of ripping the listener's head clean off with its pounding drums and ominous guitar riffs. Over the course of the next couple of tracks, though, Devil You Know reveal themselves to be more emotionally nuanced than that, allowing songs like the grimly titled "Embracing the Torture" to open up with some sung choruses to provide a respite from former Killswitch Engage vocalist Howard Jones' brutal bellows. While this might not be these guys' day jobs, it's clear that they're taking the album seriously with an album of driving metalcore that will quickly dismiss any notions of this being a vanity project for the members to kill time and use up creative castaways from their other gigs. Instead, Devil You Know use their wealth of experience to their advantage to make The Beauty of Destruction the kind of solidly written and expertly performed album that fans of the members' other work will no doubt be expecting from them.
© Gregory Heaney /TiVo