Album Review: Devenial Verdict - Old Blood - Fresh Wounds
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
It’s always worth remembering where you came from. Apparently, Devenial Verdict too found themselves in a nostalgic mood because they’ve gone and excised a few of the older tracks in their back catalogue, blown the dust off, and polished them ‘til they gleam. It’s a celebratory gesture – 2026 marking twenty years of Devenial Verdict, and following the very strong critical reception to their debut and sophomore releases (which you should absolutely go and listen to now if you haven’t already) they’re entitled to don the rose tinted glasses, gaze wistfully into the past, and drag it’s screeching revenant into the present. So then; how does the old stuff hold up?
This is an inchoate version of the sound, but the elements that their current work coalesces around were there early. To my ear it feels like these older songs had more of a slam or hardcore influence than their more recent work makes obvious – especially on the first few tracks, Devenial Verdict come out swinging with giant palm-muted grooves not unlike something Dying Fetus might loosen teeth with. As the album goes on though, the elements that the band would focus on by the time they were writing “Ash Blind” become apparent – and the moment that evolution solidified for me was “Elysium”. A refurbished cut originally from the “Corpus” Ep in 2014, it’s the point when a sense of unwelcoming melody really sinks it’s fangs in with these hovering sustained notes that circle overheard like carrion feeders, the point when they step the technicality up with some sublime, flowing riffwork at 1.22 and 3.01 – to say nothing of the deeply tuneful solo the song contains (which wasn’t on the original recording). You can hear flirtations with melody and atmosphere on “The Unborn God” (an even earlier song), but even so – “Elysium” seems to be where the band has something of a lightbulb moment regarding what sort of band they want to be.
It makes sense that “Elysium” is the only selection from “Corpus” that they’ve gone with as it is probably the best of the bunch on that one, even if you can definitely hear the roots of the band they would become stirring awake throughout the EP as a whole. The subtle accretion of those same elements that seem to get the band lumped into the “Disso-death” category a fair bit, which I’ve never thought quite described them especially well - not least because the band don’t rely on dissonance quite so often as you might think. This is frequently very consonant music, often beautiful in a distraught sort of way - “Fall of Faith” folds sparkling darts of lightning harmonies through dour cloudbeds of furious riffs and blasts, while “Thrones” hauls this grieved sense of bitter rumination along with it like a cross, webs of tremolo lines and minor arpeggios draped over it, simultaneously stirring, introspective and deeply, deeply angry.
Much of this material comes from the “Soulthirst” EP released in 2016. The band formed in 2006, so while there had been a decade for the band to hone their songwriting acumen, it’s still impressive to hear the band grow into an outfit capable of releasing (the very good) “Ash Blind” and (outstanding) “Blessing of Despair” albums a few more years later. On the promo sheet the band reflect on how “It was really eye opening to realise that all the influences were there all along”, and by the time the Immolation-esque apocalypse heraldry of “Despoiler” slithers to a closure it’s hard to argue that they aren’t vindicated. Those same influences would be honed over time, textures added and song structures expanded. There’s ambition to the work on this release that the band would go on actualise, and maybe because of that an additional layer of interest applies, sort of in the same way that it might if you were digging into the history behind an heirloom or something else that’s meaningful for you. This will probably be a horrendously pretentious way to put it, but “Old Blood – Fresh Wounds” is something of an autobiography in a way, a literal recording of where the band has been and what brings them to the point they’re at now. Sort of. These are re-recordings after all, and some tweaks have been made – the solo on “Elysium” for one, and obviously the production differs. That means that mileage might vary when it comes to which version of a given song you prefer – personally, I rather like the rougher vibe on the original “Corpus” EP, but the current interpretation they’ve gone for still gets the job done either way.
I like everything else on this album more than the first two songs – which isn’t to say that those initial songs are bad, but nonetheless every other track here retains the features that this opening duo does well but crams in additional melody, technicality and atmosphere. With that said, saying that the relatively straightforward “Rituals of Ignorance” and “Swarms of the Mindless” hold the release back wouldn’t be fair, because this isn’t being presented as a single cohered unit of itself – it’s a celebration of sorts, a band turning 20 looking back at where it’s been and how it grew over the years. I think of it more along the lines of the demo compilation Abigor released last year, as an illustration of a group developing their identity. So while this isn’t totally smooth sailing, it wasn’t meant to be – and it’s still more than good enough to be worth picking up on it’s own merits. I would recommend either of Devenial Verdict’s full lengths as a better starting place, but you can’t really go wrong with this band. Pick anything you like. Just...make sure you pick something, because these guys deserve your time.
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