According to early reports,
this was Dez Fafara's foray into death metal,
a new beginning for the former
Coal Chamber
frontman.
Coal Chamber never quite got over the
"Korn clone"
tag, and well before the band's official breakup,
Fafara was planting the
seeds for a new project, originally called Deathride before switching
to DevilDriver.
So, is this new project a nu-metal band, or a death metal band?
The answer is a bit of both, and a lot of neither,
meaning that
DevilDriver is clearly not a traditional death metal album,
and it's not really a nu-metal album, but there are
elements of both styles mixed together.
Fafara's vocals are more of a roar than a classic death metal growl,
and the riffs contain a slight groove a bit more aligned with
nu-metal, yet again this is not a nu-metal album, at least
not by the standards set by Korn and others.
The songs are a bit samey, and overall this doesn't break much
new ground, but the album is capable and fits in with the current
American underground extreme metal scene.
The band now has six albums to its credit, but
Fafara has reactiveated Coal Chamber, and so as of this writing
(February 2015) DevilDriver is inactive.
Recent album: Dealing With Demons Volume II,
released on May 12, 2023.
