Deville was birthed in 2004 after searching for the perfect members for a period of time. Since the 2004 line-up there have been nearly 400 gigs and festivals Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Czech Republic, the United States and pretty much any other country you can think of. 2005 makes their debut release on Daredevil Records. The two years later the band would sign with Buzzville Records and release their first full length album. In 2016 Markus Nilsson and Markus Åkesson decided to leave the band and the new lineup, announced in August, was complete with Martin Nobel on bass, known from bands as Bad Barber, and Martin Fässberg on drums, known from Quit Your Dayjob, Suma A.O.. Those along with Andreas Wulkan from Death Ray Boot on lead guitar and band founder Andreas Bengtsson on guitar and vocals complete the bands current lineup. On October 26, 2018 Deville released ‘Pigs With Gods’ via Fuzzorama Records. ‘Pigs With Gods’ is the bands second release on Fuzzorama and their fifth release in their career. The album picks up where their last album ‘Make It Belong To Us’ left off , moving in an even more heavy direction straight towards metal, leaving the stoner genre behind in favor of a more classic metal sound.
This album begins with the track “Lost Grounds” and a riff leads into the song. They don’t let things idle long as the rest of the band kicks in pretty quickly with the vocals taking the spotlight from the get go. The bands previous stoner rock elements have vanished on this track. The instrumentation on the album is substantially heavier, darker and grittier. Andreas Bengtsson’s vocals are very appealing and the variation in the speed that he sings just adds to the success of the track. During the majority of the song he sings in a gritty, raw yet melodic tone with a touch of harshness and when the chorus comes along he amps up the speed keeping the same exact tone. Moving on to the track “Lightbringer” which brings a little more groove to the party. Deville slows down the tempo on this track but still brings the heaviness in a more sludgy yet melodic way. The down tuned guitar work and bass lines are the stars on this track with the way in incorporates an overwhelming amount of groove. Again Bengtsson’s vocals shine as he changes things up during the chorus in regards to his tone than in the rest of the song. There is nothing flat about his vocal delivery. “Medicate On A Concrete Road” is immediately promising. You can certainly hear a little Mastodon and prog influence on this track. Andreas Wulkan sings on this track and his voice is a little less harsh than Bengtsson’s tone and has a more cleaner and melodic tone which suits well with the more progressive style on this song. This track also gives us a short but sweet guitar solo. The solo kicks in and at the very moment it ends its right back to these chugging riffs. Surprisingly the last minute of the song ends with a small orchestra instrumental breakdown which showcases violins, cellos and possibly more. Don’t snarl your nose up in disgust at the thought of these more classical instruments, its a fitting way to end the track and mixes things up gives another element to Deville’s complexity. ‘Pigs With Gods’ ends with the longest track on the album “In Reverse”. This track is a bit of a curve ball in comparison to the other tracks on the album. A drum beat and soft vocal verses lead the way for the first minute of the track. Then out of nowhere you get this onslaught of heavy riffs and beats, and then right back to the softer side of Deville. The song in a way seems slightly out of place, and it may just be that its the final track and you’d expect them to hammer out something insanely heavy leaving the listener with ringing in their ears from the brutality. But, the track does show the band is able to compose a variety of styles and songs that would suit any ear.
Deville’s ‘Pigs With Gods’ feeds your appetite for all that is heavy metal. Kicking their stoner rock vibes to the curb and taking on more of a sharper edge has certainly worked out. The band incorporates prog, sludge and straight up heavy metal that will conquer any listener. With groove and a variety of vocal approaches this album should have elements that would satisfy any headbanger.
