WHAT DO YOU THINK OF KILL DEVIL HILL?
Until their new song, “Time and Time Again,” premiered online today (stream it here), I had not heard any music from Kill Devil Hill, the new band featuring Rex Brown and Vinny Appice. (I was about to type those dudes’ previous credits when I realized that if you don’t know who Brown and Appice are, I don’t especially care about you anyway.) I know there have been some live bootlegs floating around — the band has been gigging for awhile now — but I somehow managed to avoid them and wait for the real thing.
And now that I’ve heard it… it’s good. Not great. But not bad at all.
When Kellhammer interviewed Brown about the band back in October, she likened KDH to Alice in Chains; that is certainly an apt comparison. The riff is definitely Cantrellic, and vocalist Jason “Dewey” Bragg (also of Pissing Razors fame) certainyl has a Staley-esque quality to his voice. Thing is, it’s not nearly as memorable as AiC; in fact, that’s its problem overall.
I was saying just the other day that in this era, being competent just isn’t enough. And this song is competent. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s nice that Brown’s first post-Down project is still way better than, hm, let’s see, say, Hellyeah, but I mean come ON — everyone should aspire to be better than Hellyeah. It’s really not that hard.
Check out the track for yourself right here, then let us know what you think in the comments section below… I feel like some of you might really dig this and think I’m being too hard on the material.
Kill Devil Hill’s self-titled debut album should be out in March.
-AR
