Devourment may not release music quite as often as some of the other long-running brutal death metal bands out there, but the Dallas based group has made it clear over their career that they value quality over quantity. Whether you’re jumping on with early highlight Molesting the Decapitated or later albums like Obscene Majesty (which I consider a top album of the 2010’s), Devourment has the precision and tone that has set them apart from others in the genre. Since 2019’s Obscene Majesty longtime guitarist/bassist Chris Andrews left the band and Stabbing’s Marvin Ruiz joined the fold, and this new lineup has released their first material in the form of the three-song Pious Impiety EP. In many ways it feels like it naturally picks up where Obscene Majesty left off while continuing to make subtle tweaks, and it leaves a big impact in a short amount of time.
A short sample kicks things off before the band knocks the door right off its hinges with shotgun blast drumming and extremely dense guitar and bass work. Stylistically you know what you’re getting here, but it does feel like Devourment has found this middle ground between their earlier material and Obscene Majesty both in songwriting and production qualities. Production wise the sound isn’t quite as thick and sludgy as Obscene Majesty, but each instrument still has this immense amount of weight behind it and the way that the drums pop makes them feel like they’re going to cave in the walls around you. It’s exactly the type of power and intensity that makes this type of brutal death metal so satisfying to listen to, especially at higher volumes. The three tracks also do a good job of shaking things up between the chugging grooves and blasting, and while they don’t quite reach the peaks of Devourment’s absolute best material I still found specific sections standing out with each time through. It’s also worth noting the way they all flow seamlessly together, so you can easily take this EP in as a whole or focus on one specific song. There’s something about the precision of the drumming and way the band has perfected the transitions between fast and slower parts to keep the intensity at its peak that continues to set them apart, and Pious Impiety is no exception.
Ruben Rosas has one of those guttural growls that is as distorted as they come, and it’s that powerful and inhuman quality that has continued to draw me to Devourment’s material. Rosas is in fine form throughout Pious Impiety, as the fullness of the growl and level of intensity is on par with anything you’ll hear on any of the other material where he is behind the mic. Where brutal death metal production can sometimes bury the vocals underneath the heaviness and wall of sound, things are pretty well balanced here and you can hear the growls clearly without either element overpowering the other. If you’ve spent any amount of time with Devourment you should know what you’re getting on the vocal front, and that’s a consistent pummeling from beginning to end.
Seven years had passed since Obscene Majesty, and like many others I found myself wondering if we’d finally get a follow-up. This EP dropped unexpectedly and while in some ways it feels like a teaser to an eventual full-length, the three tracks continue to demonstrate Devourment’s mastery of the style and have made me want to crank the volume up and hit the repeat button. There have been some subtle tweaks that make this feel like it is bridging the gap between the Devourment of the late 90s and its more recent incarnation, and it’ll be interesting to hear if that continues. Pious Impiety is available from Relapse Records.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg