ALBUM REVIEW: Everything Worth Loving – Elder Devil
California grindcore/sludge group ELDER DEVIL return with their sophomore album Everything Worth Loving, a record that has been tragically informed by loss and heartache. This is an album inspired by the loss of vocalist Stephen Muir‘s mother, who lays bare his grief and pain across 13 serrated slices of cacophonous noise and anguished vitriol.
It doesn’t take long for ELDER DEVIL to dive headlong into the mire; a roll of drums precedes the full frontal assault of jagged riffs, barbed vocals and razor-wire rhythm section that makes up Endless Need. Just like their 2019 debut LP The Light Dimmed Eternal, Everything Worth Loving is a confronting and discomforting listen, pressing in from all sides as it rolls straight into The Hounds At Night like an articulated lorry with a cinder block on the gas pedal. Introspection looms large and big questions are asked all the way through to the closing title track, which features the starkly despairing line “why do we love and why does that love leave?“. Muir has been through an emotional wringer and this form of cathartic outpouring makes it easy to put yourself in his unenviable shoes.
Before long though, Everything Worth Loving begins to feel a little ‘been there, done that’. With several of these tracks rolling into one another, large swathes of the record becomes a wash of barked vocals, churning instrumentation and nihilistic sentiment. With Muir delivering the same manic yells throughout, it comes down to personal preference over whether this is an exhibition in unbridled fury or a test of endurance and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot in the way of dynamics throughout. There’s also an incredibly grating racket underneath it all that seems to stem from an awful snare tone, not helped by a questionable mix on the drums. If you heard the snares on the new SANGUISUGABOGG album earlier this year, imagine that being the only thing that cuts through from the kit and make it sound duller and – for want of a better word – wetter, and you’re getting close to the mess that’s going on here. The result takes the likes of My Body Is An Earthen Shrine and After Flesh out of the confronting realm and into downright off-putting.
There are highlights that stand out though; Insomnia is the best example of grind and sludge coming together to create something truly outrageous. Its heaviness can be felt in every fibre of your existence and the tension that is built up is nothing short of nightmarish. Horror-tinged lines like “one day sleep will come, but never will you dream” and “a house built on flesh will never see rest” completes this aural night terror before rolling into the torturous What Do You See?. Equal parts LEECHED and EYEHATEGOD, the menacing interplay of fierce freneticism and brutal bludgeoning caps a supreme two-piece combo at the heart of the album.
At the end of it all though, Everything Worth Loving is a frenzied gnashing beast stuck on the end of a long leash. Held back from being as dangerous as it purports to be by a lack of dynamism and a stunted fluidity, one wonders how destructive it could be if unshackled. For now though, you can safely walk on by.
Rating: 6/10
Everything Worth Loving is out now via Prosthetic Records.
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