Conquer Records, 2005
Genre: Death Metal
1. The Counting of Quartered Heavens
2. The Enemy Within
3. Faith
4. The List
5. Degrade Flower
6. God Eater
7. Charming Maidens with No Skin
8. The Seven Virtues Divine
9. Searching for the Beauty
Usually I try to review a band’s releases in chronological order if I am able to obtain all of them and I have all Devilyn up to “XI.” However, I felt “XI” was so immense and compelling that it demanded a first analysis that could not wait! There have been some major line-up changes this time around, the biggest being that Novy is no longer the front man behind the band. This left Devilyn to seek out a new bassist and new vocalist to front the show altogether. I suspect Novy left due to his involvement in more major bands such as Behemoth and Vader, finally settling on Vader at this point it would seem (2006 based comment).
Anyway, where has Devilyn been
lead up to at this point? Well let me
first say their new vocalist is not only a great replacement, but I think he is
an even better vocalist than Novy. Michal’s
guttural tones are reminiscent of Sauron of Decapitated at times and Sauron is
by far one of the superior Death Metal vocalists when it comes to personifying
Death Metal in my opinion. I felt Novy’s
best vocal work was portrayed in “Artefact,” which is curious because Dies
Irae’s “Immolated” came out at the same time and I did not like Novy’s vocal
performance on that album. Michal not only builds on Devilyn where Novy
left off, but surpasses and presents a more fluid tone of voice to Devilyn’s
technical and chaotic works.
The new addition on Bass
Guitar, Cyprian, who comes from one of the many Polish Death Metal bands, Hate,
can’t entirely compete with Novy Bass wise as far as I can tell on here. He certainly holds his ground well, but you
don’t hear any of the crazy bass licks like you hear on “Anger.” Unfortunately, Novy left that out in the
later Devilyn works as well, and I think it would be cool if Cyprian brought
that touch back into Devilyn’s forté.
Now the shocking aspect of
their line-up change to me was the loss of Basti on drums and after hearing an
outrageous performance on “Artefact,” because of the sheer technical brutality,
where could they find another drummer to replace that kind of work? Well Domin stepped behind the kit and we all
have our answer. That's right, the man behind Nomad's drum kit. Another must hear Death Metal band! Poland
Now that I’ve outlined the
primary line-up changes that left us with one gap in the guitar department with
Dino leaving and being replaced by Erian.
Immediately it’s not just Bony writing all songs as the only original
member, but Erian steps up to the plate and composes half the album! Clearly he’s no stranger to writing superb
music to come into an album like “XI” and blow away the Death Metal listening
public!
Okay, onto the music. Did you enjoy Decapitated’s “The
Negation”? Did you ever wonder what that
would sound like even more technical?
Devilyn felt the need to answer this question for us without prompting. I hear a Decapitated influence primarily in
this, to be honest, but Devilyn just have a different methodology when it comes
to writing these songs. Plus influence
isn’t limited to just Decapitated, I can hear Yattering in some of these drum
approaches for sure. On a lot of levels
the guitar work is more over the top, maybe not against Decapitated’s “Winds of
Creation,” but certainly more outrageous than anyone else’s current work from
the Polish scene as far as I can tell.
You even hear some Lux Occulta guitar flare here and there in certain
licks. However, as anyone is aware the
influence is not restrictive to only Poland
“XI” is a blisteringly fast
and driving album and while the overall running time is by far the most
disappointing aspect of the album, it does not mean that the songs feel
incomplete. Surprisingly they feel very
finished and it does not diminish from the listening experience. What diminishes the listening experience is
the disappointment that the album has ended far too soon. Maybe they should have written fifteen
songs? The other Devilyn releases are
much longer, except “Artefact” so maybe they were already progressing to “XI”
time wise ultimately. This is an album
every fan of technical Death Metal needs to be subjected to, I can’t imagine
someone not enjoying this, even if you reserve yourself to more listener
accessible Death Metal like Vader, for example.
One of the greatest aspects
of this album is Michal’s lyrics.
They’re so outlandish and confusing, but purposeful at the same
time. I don’t even know where he gets
the motivation for some of this stuff.
There are allusions to all sorts of numerical devices throughout the
lyrical works. There is a feel that
there is a “puzzle” to be solved in the lyrics and the answer is somewhere in
numbers. The freakiest thing and easiest
to figure out, subsequently, is on the back of the booklet and not even sung in
any of the songs. It seems to have some
sort of poetic aspect:
"On
the eleventh day after creation
The
god died
And
they still quartered my heavens
It
was the eleventh day
Of
an eleventh month
Of
the eleventh year
Of
my life
Then
I counted up all
Of
the four hundred
And
fourty three thousand
Five
hundred and fifty six
Fragments
of heavens"
Now at first glance this
probably appears quite meaningless. Not
in the least! It has great numerical
meaning fraught throughout! For example
the easiest to solve is the total amount of heavens which is written out long
hand, but ultimately is: 443,556. Now at
first glance any lay person would say “what a meaningless number” right? Look at it closer; take the square root of
the number and you will see the secret. It
is inversely squared precisely and the outcome is 666. So 443,556 is really the square of 666. That’s how he derived that number. However, the part where I have a mathematical
logic breakdown is with things being quartered, meaning 4. I can’t find how that number relates… I must digress;
I only spent about twenty minutes working with the numbers.
Now let’s look at the first
part of that poem, which is much less apparent than the square of 666 reference. Here we are given the eleventh day, the
eleventh month, and the eleventh year, written as 11/11/11 in date sequence. Now depending on how you write dates or where
you’re from, the year 11 would be 0011.
So my first inclination was maybe its binary, because I divided it by
11, since 11 was the preferred number and arrived at 10101, and the thought
that it could be in binary hit me. So, I
went in search of a binary translator online (this is what I used: http://www.adcott.net/binary) and yielded the results
of nothing. Not what I was hoping
for. However, I then got the notion that
666 might mean something! Aha! I had my answer for 6 in binary equals
00110110. Not the whole sequence of 11
right? However, when I place 0011011011
into the decoder I still yield a value of 6!
I’m not entirely sure how binary works, but I think I have found my
primary answer behind the secret of “XI.”
I must say this was certainly an enjoyable mathematical puzzle and only
made me more interested in the bands work and with such compelling and
wonderful puzzles. I am curious now to know if there are any
other puzzles or secrets in their lyrics or was it just the poem at the end
that is like a method of decoding it.
I’m sure the fact that eleven is a prime number has some other hidden
meaning. However, figuring this out
leads me to believe that the lyrics aren’t as nonsensical as I previously
thought.
In summation this album is
wondrous through and through. Not only
will it challenge you musically on a technical level, but also on an
intellectual level. I have immense
respect for what Devilyn have accomplished on this album and I highly recommend
that my readers follow suit and track down this release and listen to it as
much as I do. I have been constantly
pulling this out and revisiting the album and that, to me, is the mark of a
good album, just hopefully it will keep it up.
There are some albums I will listen to a lot when I first get them, but
eventually they fall to the wayside and are dominated by other releases. However, I do not think “XI” will fall into
this category, unless Devilyn’s next release manages to absolutely put “XI” to
shame… which that would be hard, but is possible. Hopefully the next one will be longer. Again, this is a must have release! Enter the world of “XI” it is a prime choice.
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