Review by Emma on May 14, 2009.

Well, what to say. Austria’s Violent Devoties has brought us a death/grindcore EP that is decent, thought out, but has joined the masses that fall into the category of ‘mediocre.’
"Within The Great And The Venom" has a good opening; it gave me some expectations. But, the breakdowns were really the strongest points of the songwriting, which isn’t saying much in my opinion. Like so many bands of this genre in recent years (and some not so recent), Violent Devoties has that mechanical sound that takes away the soul and organic aggression Brutal Metal should have. The mixing (which is off) is partially to blame, but so are the vocals and effects. What happened to the untouched guttural human growl? Can you guys just fuck pro-tools for a second and play it as raw as your blood-spattered subject matter? ‘Sea Of Souls’ has the most to offer in the song-writing department, but the whole ‘Fuck Yoouu!’ thing is just adolescent. What really killed this album were the vocals. The dual vocals of screams sailing over growls just blew. This would have been a much better album had the screaming vocals been taken out entirely, though the growling isn’t particularly good either. The fact that they have a song about zombies gives Violent Devoties points, just because zombies are awesome. But even zombies can’t make up for the glossy sound of bands like this that plague metal mag advertisement sections.
The writing is what you would expect for this genre; some serious grammatical editing needs to take place though. Been there, done that, the annoying hardcore kid in your class would enjoy this.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship-5
Atmosphere-5
Production-4
Originality-3
Overall-5.5

Rating: 4.5 out of 10