Ok so there’s a problem here.  Floridian band Devastator was one of the upcoming young bands of the black thrash genre, certainly one of the best that the United States had to offer.  Albums like the fantastic debut The End and excellent follow-up Nuclear Proliferation as well as, to a lesser degree, the following two albums Morbid Force and Conjuring Evil really showcased the band’s abilities at crafting coherent and combative evil thrash; the debut album in particular an impressive display of the obvious stamina and endurance necessary to play 10-13 minute tracks of such accelerated speed.  Sometime after 2008’s Conjuring Evil, Devastator decided to make a significant change to their sound and the resulting album The Summoning was somewhat of a major departure for the band.  With simpler, cleaner, more mild-mannered songs paying homage to the sounds of the era of Venom more than Destruction, Kreator, and Sodom, the album was moderately successful.  New album Nocturnal Slut continues in this vein, and, unfortunately, the new sound has lost most of its appeal, and we’re left with a forgettable album of mostly bland material.

A lot of the problem with Nocturnal Slut, and the new Devastator sound in general is in the production and mixing.  The sound is displeasingly muffled, and the guitar tone is extremely thin and almost totally buried in the mix, virtually robbing the band of any semblance of ‘heaviness’.  Compounding the problem, the guitar solos are mixed almost comically loud, awkwardly barging in on the songs at what seems like inappropriate times, resembling someone listening to the songs on their home stereo and practicing soloing karaoke style.  It’s very jarring and particularly irritating.  The drums are also mixed at near absurd levels.  Basically, either the solos and drums are at the right level and the rhythm guitar is incorrectly low, or else it’s the other way around.  I’m fairly certain there’s a bass in there somewhere but its presence is inconsequential.  The thought occurred to me that this all may be a result of taking the retro fashioning a bit too far, attempting to mimic the early 1980s to such an extent that they’d even try to copy the sound of that era’s production.  I don’t have a clue, but I really hope that’s not the case.

Sound problems aside, the songs on the album are just plain bland.  The album actually starts out strongly with “Witching Command” which might really be the best song the band have done in this new style, but after that, it’s pretty much a total blur of the forgettable.  Every time I listen to the album, I rock out to the opening track, then slip into a semi-coma for the next 27 or so minutes, to be awoken by something that finally smacks me in the head and gets me psyched again, only to discover that it’s the cover version of Running Wild’s “Black Demon”.  It’s a good cover of a great song, and it’s the only other thing close to a high-point on an album that is a definite low-point in Devastator’s career.

TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  Intro/Witching Command
2.  Sorceress
3.  Nocturnal Slut
4.  Taste of Death
5.  Rites of Impending Souls
6.  Sacrifice
7.  Sepulchral Screams
8.  Black Demon (Running Wild)
9.  Pussy Troll Rock ‘n Roll

Total playing time:  44:20

Release Date: September, 2010
Label: Necromancer/
Old Cemetery Records

Reviewer: J. A. Burt

March 27, 2011

Devastator - Nocturnal Slut