In the simplest terms, ‘The Devil Based in Music’ is a fairly well-constructed, slightly simplistic but very listenable piece of music. Based largely around the gravelly, folk-infused vocals of front man Ronan Mitchell, Fox Jaw Bounty Hunters’ debut album has another distinct tone, though, that’ll either win you over or have you running for the hills. This is a piece of music with such a strong tendency towards dirge-ish darkness – moody atmospherics accompanied by intense displays of inner gloom – that it’ll take a particular type of moody disposition (or Halloween, perhaps) to be able to deal with the album’s entire minor-key opus. We certainly wouldn’t turn to these guys for a night of fun-loving partying.
Still, music doesn’t have to be uplifting to be good – to suggest that it shouldn’t cover an entire range of emotions would be extremely narrow minded – and we can certainly appreciate that whilst scraping those baritone depths, Fox Jaw Bounty hunters come up with some lyrical gems tacked onto some languidly appetizing melodies. Take ‘Hatch Sixteen’, where they croon ‘drain the life out of it all, you fear to scratch that desperate itch, you crash the tree into the bridge’ in a sarcastic love in aimed at an un-named town (we won’t get out of line and assume it’s their Limerick homeland, but it might be…). Immediately afterwards, ‘Milkanoid’s infectiously swirly intro is followed by a lovelorn lament; ‘I don’t mind if it’s over, if it helped you sleep at night’, both moments of enticement that edge towards the poetic.
Still, sporadic moments of lyrical brilliance aside, even when it’s being wrist-cuttingly dark ‘The Devil in the Music’ is disappointing lacking in any deeper persona, and more importantly, in any notable variety. While we can see ourselves tuning in for a song or two when in need of a sympathetic ‘woe is me’ moment, at fifty minutes, the album in full is something of a slog. When you get there, things do close out with arguably the album highlight, the mildy gloom-lifting, tingle-inducing epic that is ‘Darker Shade of Blue’, an album saver if ever we’d heard one. In the most part, though, the folky, heady bass vibes aren’t quite good enough to carry such depression into an everyday realm. We don’t be diving back in unless faced with moments of desperate heartbreak.