I love one-word album titles. Easier to remember when you are hyped about them, easier to forget them when you hate them, easier to promote them if you are getting money out of them. Everybody wins! Still though, that one word should say something for the album you are about to buy/listen. So "Beast" as an album title will give you a hint that you are in for a nice aural primal pounding once you press play. Or so DEVILDRIVER will want you to think!

Five albums and ten years -more or less- the brainchild of Dez Farfara is living strong in the minds of metalheads around the globe with four solid releases and some huge mosh pits during their gigs! With "Beast" the band wants to venture into more brutal regions and be less "playful" and more straight forward, like a punch in the stomach ; reading the info about this release you can tell that they made the right step towards the aforementioned direction by getting the infamous Andy Sneap to do the production.

Starting with the opener and -what a surprise- first single of the album "Dead To Rights" and wow, the drums are loud! That's a good sign right? But where the heck are the guitars (plural is intended)? And why Dez really tries to sound more like "bad ass" like he is trying to prove something? Almost everything is buried under the -wannabe growling- vocals and the drums. It seems that they are trying to go into a more traditional death metal path, sacrificing some of the essence that made them who they are now. The groove, that feeling that made you want to bang your head to a concrete wall till you stop thinking, is barely there! First good moment of the album strikes at track number three, "Hardened". That song really shows the great production ESPECIALLY in the section where the amazing solo hits off after that mediocracy plagues the album again. "Talons Out (Teeth Sharpened)" must be one of the most uninspired songs from a band that I actually like; there is no coherency. It is like they were mashing up two songs and came up with a third "new" one, like the Rick Ashley/Nirvana YouTube mash videos up you see on the net!

Things pretty much goes on like this; struggling to find something worth listening till you hear the cover of a country song from 16 HORSEPOWER that really makes up for the lost time. "Black Soul Choir" is really mind blowing and it might be one for the rare cases that the band covering the original song conquers it in every way. Even though it saddens me a bit for a cover to be the best song of the album, that shows how GOOD the cover is and I have a feeling we are going to have another favorite live song for DEVILDRIVER's "legendary" mosh pits! And once you think you are recovering from the previous song, "Crowns Of Creation" hits you like a truck running on the fucking highway. Seriously, who arranged the song order? This song follows the same pattern from "Hardened" including ANOTHER awesome solo after a wonderful pace change and relentless drumming. Even the last song "Lend Myself To The Night" beats the crap out of the first nine songs (excluding "Hardened").

DEVILDRIVER really tried to create a "Beast"-lyalbum, but all this effort seemed forced and out of place. This is more obvious if you listen to the awesome cover of "Black Soul Choir" and to "Hardened"/ "Crowns Of Creation" which can be freely "labeled" as traditional DEVILDRIVER songs. Yeah, sure, Dez lyrics are fucking angry and the drumming is amazing but the ending result isn't as satisfying as their previous releases. Fans of the band will like this album no matter what, it is solid stuff, but the rest might want to skip it. There are way better death metal albums out there...