Devil Is Fine

The promotion and reception buzz around this album has understandably circled around the mash-up of African American work songs and gospel shouts with blasts of extreme noise: black spirituals meets black metal. This is certainly one of the interesting features of the album, but its scope reaches far beyond this odd juxtaposition. Zeal and Ardor’s Devil is Fine is a genuinely fascinating recording, whether approached as an idiosyncratic meditation on diverse outposts of the history of popular music and its strange influences and contact points; or simply as an expertly compelling collage of intriguing sounds. Started as a sort of dare or experiment, a version of this album has actually been out already on Reflections Records, while an earlier demo with a more conventional sampling-based hip-hop sound was previously available online before disappearing, presumably at the behest of label MVKA who have signed up Zeal & Ardor, shuffled the track order and put out Devil is Fine again in the wake of the excited response it got first time round.