DEVIL’S WHOREHOUSE – Revelation Unorthodox

Originality can be the key to success, but rarely in music. If you want to be sell albums, or even get a record deal, you’d best sound like every other damn band out there. That’s why you’ll get a lot of clones in popular metal/rock. So what are we to think about the band Devil’s Whorehouse, who instead of copying bands like Dream Theater, Godsmack, Dimmu Borgir, etc., they unabashedly copy The Misfits/Samhain? Well, we can think “thank you,” for starters …

Devil’s Whorehouse is a project of Marduk members B. War and Morgan, along with two other musicians, Zedda and Hrafn. Although they formed to play covers of The Misfits, Danzig and Samhain, they soon began writing original music in that vein. Their second release, Revelation Unorthodox is lucky number 13 tracks full of songs about bondage, blood, pentagrams, death, graves … you get the picture.

Revelation Unorthodox (a clumsy title, by the way …) initiates the journey to hell with “Death From Beyond,” an evil Slayer-sounding guitar piece that ends with some sort of gasping, wheezing, dying noise. Suddenly, intense double bass, frenetic guitars and Glenn Danzig greet you on “Swallow Your Grave.” Well, it’s not actually Danzig, but you’d have a hard time finding anyone able to capture his voice any better. The chorus in “Swallow Your Grave” is a repetition of “Chainsaw, shotgun, flying arrows!” followed by “Swallow your soul!” Definitely a Misfits vibe going on here.

The thing about this type of music: it really sounds all the same. It’s hard to differentiate from track to track, and that will end up meaning if you like one song, you’ll like them all. But if not …

“The Raven” follows the dark magic, death theme. This one starts off a little differently, and the vocals are spoken more so than sung, so if you are looking for variety on this disk, it’s here. You will consistently be amazed at how much it sounds like Danzig doing vocals again. “When the raven flies, someone dies,” is sung with that guttural Danzig growl, to perfection, along with the yell of “destined to die!”

The song where they step away from exact clones and get a little more metal than punk is on “Bondage Goddess.” Again, you will hear a bit of Slayer on the guitars, albeit slower paced. They score another great horror-death-rock (their moniker) song here, with the chorus of “Bondage goddess … love hurts!” Like the bands they copy, repetition of guitar and vocals is how the songs are constructed, but this formula will have you yelling along instantly.

“Pentagram Murderer” is the thrashiest song on Revelation Unorthodox. It’s faster than most any Misfits/Samhain song, and four times faster than Danzig has ever done. You will be impressed with the drumming here; it’s breakneck and heavy.

When you come to “Erotikill,” they step things back a pace, let the guitar speak for itself during the intro, and again, you’ll get spoken vocals. They are hard to understand here, but at least it stands apart from the constancy before it.

While they never hit the brilliance and rapacious fun of songs like “Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?”, Devil’s Whorehouse’s blatant homage is refreshing in an industry when bands outright copy other bands and then act offended when called on it. Even on their press kit, they say “Fans of the Misfits, Samhain and Danzig will worship this divine piece of horror.” So, if you don’t own any of Danzig’s alter egos, and want to see what the fuss is about, this is a great place to start. True fans of the aforementioned bands, though, are honestly going to love this.

Thank you, Glenn Danzig.