Despite At Devil Dirt’s influences I see something very different emitting from their music. Like most good music it is imbibed with a dominating central image, but it isn’t an amalgamation of the ingredients that were initially used.
The clean and comprehensive vocals remain understated and they are not entirely catchy yet they surface enticingly, reaching ethereal realms. Keeping their heads above the fuzz. Akin to the exquisite Germans Colour Haze, whose front man, Stefen Koglek, floats his vocals like a barrel in the sea in their undulating and warm textures. But At Devil Dirt don’t have that lunar pull nor tidal flow of Colour Haze. Unexpectedly, a fossil in the shape of a T-Rex comes to mind when I hear the vocals.
The rich depth of At Devil Dirt’s guitar tone heaves through the grooves their lone guitarist ekes out, tuned so remarkably low I initially thought it was a bassist and drummer duo. Warhorse had a similar effect on me, the tone on their frozen masterpiece ‘As Heaven Turns To Ash’ summons dense miles of trees and dead pines lying in stacks at the side of the road. At Devil Dirt keep that alluring thickness in their tone but relinquishes Warhorse’s callous wintry forest. Home country Chile’s summer resides instead, At Devil Dirt are warm and urban.
On this self-titled, their debut record, At Devil Dirt are compact and concise with their song writing, not seen since Floor emerged through the storm drains from the underground, and they share the same urban sensibilities. Floor are certainly urban sonically, the quick hits of huge riffs reflect towering skyscrapers and robust concrete structures. At Devil Dirt aren’t building anything though, they’re more low land dwellers, lying flat out on the road in the sun, the structures of their songs are serpentine; snake through their riffs then they’re done. They don’t construct, commit or crescendo. Next one. No stopping here.
For me this record took me completely by surprise. I was thinking that there’d be Colour Haze’s seducing ebb and flow or Warhorse’s frozen oak thickness or Floor’s high rise tenacity. Instead, At Devil Dirt have done their own thing. As a debut record this is astonishing, it’s urbane but punchy, it’s nomadic in it’s wandering between structures but never settles, it’s away in the clouds then changes tact and pummels the earth with a heavy groove.
Oh, and them riffs; I already want more.
Chile’s greatest unknown sons.
-Gaia