DevilDriver - Outlaws 'Til the End, Vol. 1

Going into this album I was worried about Dez Fafara and his new DevilDriver bandmates trying to do a bonafide country album of covers of classic outlaw songs all on their own. While they’re certainly one of modern groove metal’s biggest names, I’ve never really found DevilDriver’s brand of it to be the most riviting stuff within the subgenre. It’s not bad and it gets the job done, no doubt, but they don’t really hold a candle to the genre’s godfathers or to bands keeping it going today like Lamb of God. I just wasn’t looking forward to hearing the band take some kind of wild, amateur stab at outlaw country, just hoping for the best in a genre they haven’t mastered. But thank God that’s not what this album ending up being.
Outlaws 'Til the End, Vol. 1 (which suggests the prospect of another installment of similarly themed material) brings the songs far from their original sonic teritory, and in close to Dez’ comfort zone. Most of the songs he chose I was at least familiar with, but there were a few on here I hadn’t heard of. Perhaps it’s because the writing was already done for him, and done well, but this album has more going for it than the past few DevilDriver albums.
It has the same gritty aggression all their past albums have, crunchy guitars, fast drumming, Dez’ harsh, snarling growls. But this covers album has a bit more of what DevilDriver’s music could always have used: good writing (which the band can’t really take much credit for) and plenty of outside help. The long list and diversity of collaborators on the track list, from Randy Blythe and Wednesday 13 to Hank Williams III and Johnny Carter Cash, definitely bring subtle variety to the album’s approaches to each song without scattering the sound too broadly. Randy Blythe’s vocals on the cover of Willie Nelson’s “Whiskey River” give it a fresh edge and Brock Lindow’s on “Copperhead Road” and Wednesday 13’s on “If Drinking Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will)” are similarly helpful. I love Fear Factory and Burton C. Bell’s vocals, but his feature on “Dad’s Gonna Kill Me” is probably the most notable stylistic hiccup. But cuts without guest vocalists like the cover of The Eagles’ “Outlaw Man” show the band’s ability to just bolus the metallic grooviness to a song of this type and have it still function well.
Even though the songs are so far removed from their origins that they are only minimally recognizable, the groove and swagger they still carry perhaps speaks more to the solidity of their bones and their ability to migrate genres well than it does of the band covering them. Nevertheless, you can’t take away all the credit from Dez and company for knowing what to do to give these songs a proper groove metal treatment.

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