Sludgefactory.com review of "Fate is Your Muse"; A Submitted by robyn on 04.07.2013 Devil To Pay Fate Is Your Muse Ripple Music Release Date: Out Now Review by David Norris The thing that has always impressed me the most about DEVIL TO PAY is that based purely on appearances, this Indianapolis 4-piece doesn’t seem to be the type of band to offer any intellectual stimulation for the listener. As the old adage goes, looks can be deceiving. Kicking off their fourth album, ‘Fate Is Your Muse’ is a track called ‘Prepare To Die’ and I quickly realise that there’s very few sonic difference from their 2009 album, ‘Heavily Ever After’. I never noticed it before but as singer/guitarist Steve Janiak sings the opening line, “Born to work, bred to lose”, I draw similarities between the vocal styling of James Hetfield. With the sophomore line of, “The legions of the melancholy fools”, any doubts that we’ll be forcibly exposed to a Hetfield level of tawdry lyrics are hastily quashed. ‘Yes Master’ is a much slower affair, containing all the essence of a doom band without the standard muddy recordings and gloomy tones. Although not overly strong as a stand-alone track, its purpose is well and truly served as an excellent change of pace to the band’s more common up tempo tracks but having said that, it well and truly keeps your interest for the entire 7 minutes. We get to a song named after an Italian Dominican preacher from the 15th century, ‘Savonarola’. Whether this was an intentional reference or not, the friar was executed in 1498 and two weeks prior, he wrote his “Infelix Ego” a confession of sorts to his alleged crimes. Almost 100 years later, his words were put to music and this was credited in history where the lyrics of the music became more important that the tune. This is almost ironic, as the vocal mix is quite low on the album to the point where you really need to struggle to pick up what’s being said in many of the songs and it’s very rare that any musicians that have something to say employ this tactic. We move on to the shortest track of the album, ‘The Naked Truth’. Coming in at 151 seconds long, it’s my belief that there is only one thing wrong with this track: It’s location on the album. The guitar riff grabs your attention immediately and the rhythm is continuously pumping along for the entirety of the track. In fact, the only thing that stands between this and the world-class calibre of a CLUTCH song (the undisputed kings of heavy/blues rock) is an infectious, sing-along section in the lyrics. A song like this would probably be better served as the opening track because admittedly, I was only half listening on the first time through the album but this track immediately made me stop what I was doing and pay closer attention. With a slow fade in, ‘Beyond The Ether’ closes out the album. In an almost ELECTRIC WIZARD manner, DEVIL TO PAY blends slow tempos and groove exceptionally well on this track as it takes us on a 5 minute, perpetual decrease in speed to become almost painfully slow, which only emphasises the feeling of anguish in the vocals. The chorus is beautifully contrasted with both a sing-along, and haunting vocals as they begin to follow the same chord progression as both the guitars and bass. Not exclusive to this track, the range of songwriting the entire album displays is what you would come to expect from any band’s fourth album. 7 Stars