Article By: Leanne Ridgeway
Devil To Pay has been a bit quiet the past few months, but that doesn’t mean they’re not busy. As a matter of fact, we have their brand new Official Video premiering for you today.
Devil To Pay’s full-length ‘A Bend Through Space And Time‘ album was released in the second half of 2016, via Ripple Music. It also happened to be one of my favorite albums during that year. Recorded by Mike Bridavsky at Russian Recording in Bloomington, Indiana, this sophomore release for Ripple really struck a sharp chord with me.
With Steve Janiak on vocals and guitar, Chad Prifogle behind the drums, Matt Stokes on bass, and Rob Hough on guitar, the Hoosier heavy rock veterans are nearly disturbing with how well-developed their songwriting is. The entire album is a solid set of ten fully ‘Riff Relevant’ tracks laid thick with chiseled grooves and soul-sonic contemplation.
Devil To Pay is a bit unique – to my ears, anyway. Mr. Janiak has a striking, memorable vocal ability that somehow manages to be both gritty and soaring. With lyrics born out of the Aether, its psychedelic mind-weaving spins threads of doom across your very existence.
Like I said… somewhat disturbing, but in such a fantastic, uplifting, weird way. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to have the opportunity to see them perform live in all these years to experience the full effect. However, Devil To Pay has been confirmed to appear at this year’s Descendants Of Crom Festival in Pittsburgh, PA. That current never-having-seen them misfortune of mine shall shift its course to a much more auspicious direction as September arrives.
‘A Bend Through Space And Time’ Tracklist:
01. On and On
02. Don’t Give Away the World
03. Kobold in the Breadbasket
04. Laughingstock
05. The Meaning of Life
06. Recommended Daily Dosage
07. Knuckledragger
08. Kerfluffle
09. Your Inner Lemmy
10. The Demons Come Home to Roost
These four fine gentlemen from Indiana have released a new music video for “Laughingstock“, which is the fourth track on ‘A Bend Through Space in Time‘, and we’re sharing it with you all today. Enlisting their good friends, music writer, and food critic Jeff Napier, and pub owner Jimmy Peoni, the video is ‘sort of’ a tribute to a legendary menu item at Indy’s State Street Pub.
“Jeff was always going on about the ‘best goddamned cheeseburger in the city’ and posting pics online. At some point I joked we should turn that into a music video. It just took us forever to get around to it.” said vocalist Steve Janiak.
“In the video, our protagonist comes to see Devil to Pay playing live, orders one of the State Street Pub cheeseburgers and some fries with mayo, but gets more than he bargained for, setting the stage for a psychedelic Devil to Pay experience.”
Janiak continued, “Then we found out he eats his fries with mayonnaise. Yuck. So of course we had to put that into the video. The song itself is an anti-bullying theme, sort of ‘come make fun of me’, so we had this ridiculous idea and had a lot of fun making it.”
Devil to Pay is currently deep in writing mode for their sixth record, planning to record in the Spring, and are shooting to make that creativity a 2018 release.
Order ‘A Bend Through Space And Time‘ via Ripple Music Webstore or Bandcamp locations. Available on CD, digital download, as well as vinyl LP pressing.
My copy of ‘A Bend Through Space And Time‘, which is the ‘Psychic Vortex Splatter’ variant:
