Devil Driver-Strike and Kill album reviewed by Mark J. "What remains is DevilDriver doing what only DevilDriver does"
DEVILDRIVER — Strike and Kill
Napalm Records, July 10 2026)
Twenty-plus years. Eleven albums. Multiple near-death experiences — both literal and figurative, Dez Fafara's long-COVID battle of 2025 coming about as close as it gets. Strike and Kill is the first album to feature founding bassist Jon Miller since Beast in 2011, alongside the guitar team of Alex Lee and Gabe Mangold and drummer Davier Pérez — a lineup that took years of turnover and realignment to arrive at.
It sounds like a band that came back to itself.
Fafara has talked about the record's direction being settled by a deceptively simple instruction: look at the logo. Get back to what that logo means. The logo means California groove metal, mean and melodic in equal measure, not interested in trends, not apologising for being exactly what it is. Mangold, producing his own band for the first time, understands that real estate: the guitars need to sit thick but not muddy, the groove has to be felt before it's understood. He gets it right.
The album opens with "Dig Your Own Grave" — assault rifle kicks and crunching riffs before "Dead in the Water" shows what Lee and Mangold can do when their melodeath instincts run loose. "Sanctified In Scars" crushes in its mid-section, "Oath of Iron" brings raw punk energy that feels like a basement show about to detonate, and "Headed for the Fall" is the kind of track you know will become a live staple within the first spin. Fafara is in top form throughout — every lyric delivered with conviction and fury, whether leading a gang-vocal battle cry or unleashing his trademark growl.
The 13-track runtime doesn't drag because these songs have been pressure-tested for years. The fat has been trimmed. What remains is DevilDriver doing what only DevilDriver does, which sounds like a small thing until you hear them doing it again and remember why you cared.
Killer record, and you should grab it as it rips from start to end!!!
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