Devolved - Automation EP 001 (Independant)

With a debut album that surfaced from almost nowhere and largely set the country on fire, Devolved have quickly become one of Australia’s most beloved and respected bands. Even though that album hit me as hard as anyone, personally it lacked… something. This, their first of a series of three EPs, sees the Devolved concept come together with more clarity, identity and purpose. As a result, if you ask me this is where their true ascendancy begins.

The exact benefits of releasing three separate EPs as opposed to one album isn’t entirely clear, but nonetheless Automation EP 001 has all the Devolved elements really hitting high gear and delivering maximum impact. A somewhat dirge-like guitar sound makes the material seem a little murky, but that isn’t to say this CD isn’t heavy, for this band delivers wall-shaking industrialised death metal with a bone-shattering heaviness and intensity. The three songs ‘Derivative’, ‘Impute’ and ‘Assimilate’ are all finely tuned, unbelievably precise and mind-blowingly accurate in their mechanical attack. Coldly robotic and never showing any glimpses of human remorse, the music seems to have grown even more complex and contain more gear changes and components than any machine known to man. The continual stop-start approach and the massively rhythmic focus of their songwriting, driven again by an outstanding performance by drummer John Sankey, makes the three tracks seemingly run into one another, which ultimately enhances the EP’s strength.

The bonus features of this disc are also a strong selling point. A demo recording of ‘Fallen Cities’ (with natural sounding drums that almost seem out of place amongst the usual triggered attack) off their debut is included for collectors, and the CD-ROM component is brilliant. The video for ‘Distorted’, the song synonymous with the band, is thrown in with all its vision-blurring intensity, and interviews spliced with live footage also round out the package. Automation EP 001 is as good as an EP gets – this is where the nightmarish vision that is Devolved really crystallises into shape.

Score - 8/10

By: Kev Truong