Devildriver has announced that they will release the first half of their upcoming double album Dealing With Demons on October 09th. The first part is called Dealing With Demons I and will be released through Napalm Records. The first single, “Keep Away From Me” can be found below.
Mike Spreitzer, the band’s guitarist co-produced the album with Steve Evetts (The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die). Dez Fafara, the band’s frontman offered the following on the album:
“It’s time to lay it all out, on two records. I’m never gonna revisit these subjects again. I’ve been writing about this sort of human nature, disloyalty and dishonesty, love and loss, since the beginning of my career. I am going in a more lyrically woke direction in the future. A lot of people say my music gives them strength.
But what they don’t realize is that these topics haunt me. Over the course of these last few years we fled from wildfires, my wife battled cancer and now we are going through a pandemic… so it is what it is… let’s dump it all on the table and purge. I want to go through different topics in the future, so here we are now. I’ve laid it all out on a double record for all of you to hear.”
He also mentioned the eventual second half of the set:
“Volume two will get into some very heavy topics as well. You’ll see the band progress even further musically as we finish this ode to the purge of all things Demonic.”
Fafara commented on the first single with:
“I’ve been social distancing since I was born. I’ve learned to try and embrace my Agoraphobia all my life. This is what the lyrics are about as we are all sheltered in place. They seem very clear. Now is not the time bands should shy away from the obvious by trying to push the narrative through their art as if everything is alright with the world and ‘it’s metal video visual as usual time’, as it is clearly NOT that time.
We as artists should speak up, inspire and change lives, or paint a picture – a time capsule if you will – by the narrative we push in uncertain times. This video is one such art piece as my band and thousands of others are forced into quarantine – cannot rehearse, take photos, or perform – to make a music video for the very people that have supported us for years.
It’s trying times for the world and my outlook through this video is simply this: ‘here’s what we are going through as a family on this planet and as we embrace what is yet to come… please Stand Together’.”
“Dealing With Demons I” tracklisting:
01 – “Keep Away From Me”
02 – “Vengeance Is Clear”
03 – “Nest Of Vipers”
04 – “Iona”
05 – “Wishing”
06 – “You Give Me A Reason To Drink” (feat. Simon Blade Fafara)
07 – “Witches”
08 – “Dealing With Demons”
09 – “The Damned Don’t Cry”
10 – “Scars Me Forever”
