The album starts out with an instrumental intro that, like on most Scandinavian metal sounding albums (although they call themselves Viking metal, it isn't in the sense of sounding like Enslaved; it's just really fantasy oriented), can be skipped. “Hang the Vermin” rips through the speakers sounding like Into Eternity would in full death-metal mode. Then “Gods of War and Open Sores” sounding oddly like Warheart from CoB with its fast keyboards and chanting. “Ripped Apart by the Juggernaut” follows suit much the same fashion. There is a point on albums that are derivate of a single particular style of music (here, Scandinavian melodic death) where the listener starts to lose interest. On Devour the Power, this point is “Battle Cry.” The band seems to go through the motions and blast-beats away for four minutes while incorporating some of those Metal Blade metalcore riffs. The following interlude does nothing to help regain interest, and then “The Beast that Cannot Be Fed” follows with some simplistic grinding riffs and squealing guitars. Then we move back to some generic blast based metal with the hilarious “Mutilated Cranial Orifice” and its thought out lyrics including “We will fist fuck your skull.” What a nice way to thank the listener.

If you take out the middle portion of this CD, it is actually quite good. After “Mutilated...” Destroy Destroy Destroy moves back to doing what it is a little better at: “Hellfire” sports some of clean singing and Dragonforce's melodic shredding, although it doesn't last for as long as the typical Herman Li solo. And finally there is the keyboard laden final track “Bring the Exodus” that oozes CoB yet again. When Destroy Destroy Destroy stick to their interpretation of Scandinavian melodic death, they play some pretty damn good metal. I can see playing this every so often when I need some mindless fun, but other than that it just sounds too familiar.

written by Kevin Penner

Playing time: 39.46