ALBUM REVIEW: DEVIN, ROMANCING

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always returns to its pre–psychedelia roots, and there’s a reason for that. The primal, raw energy of a man howling about his baby done left him, hammering his guitar for all its worth connects with people
in a way nothing else does…and Devin certainly captures that.

If Willy Moon is aiming at Elvis, Devin is pure Jerry Lee Lewis. ‘Romancing’ starts full of pumped up punk cool with ‘Masochist’, dives toward doo wap with ‘Born to Cry’ and echoes a Phil Spector girl group with ‘New Horrors’, continuing at a break neck pace throughout. It’s lively, fun and sounds new, although as anyone who’s heard The Hives’ 2000 album ‘Veni Vidi Vicious’, can tell you,it’s far from it.

Devin’s rasp tends to grate after a few tracks and although ‘Romancing’ gets a bit predictable in the middle it picks up at the end with the neat ‘You’re Mine’ and ‘Too Soon’, before finishing on a slightly slower, but no more subdued way with ‘White Leather’, which bizarrely, sounds like a lost Hanoi Rocks track. Whatever Devin lacks in originality he makes up for in brute force. ‘Romancing’, released April 30.

MAY TOUR DATES…

5th: LEEDS, Live At Leeds
6th: LONDON, Camden Crawl

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