DEVILDRIVER gave fans at Welcome To Rockville a surprise this past weekend, unleashing a brand-new song on stage for the very first time.
On Saturday (May 9), the California metallers performed their latest single, “Dig Your Own Grave,” live for the debut time in front of a festival crowd in Daytona Beach, Florida. Watch fan-filmed video footage of the performance below.
The song is taken from DEVILDRIVER’s upcoming eleventh studio album, Strike And Kill, which is scheduled for release on July 10 via Napalm Records.
Frontman Dez Fafara previously opened up about the meaning behind the single, explaining: “‘Dig Your Own Grave’ is about how one wrong decision, one wrong move can see your whole world turned upside down, effectively ‘digging’ your own grave… it’s that simple.
“It can also refer to how your decisions can f**k someone else. This is why there’s the line ‘six feet ain’t deep enough for you’, because only a deep, deep hole is fitting for what you’ve done or tried to do to others. Be careful when you choose to make decisions at midnight.”
Following DEVILDRIVER‘s career defining double album Dealing With Demons Vols. 1 & 2 —with Vol. 1 sitting at #1 at metal radio for a triumphant 15 weeks, and Vol. 2 celebrated by internationally revered media like Metal Injection, Kerrang!, and Blabbermouth, who lauded “you can’t stop the unstoppable”— the band sets out on a rabid hunt with Strike and Kill, holding the blade to your throat, and serving up that trademark DEVILDRIVER blend of melodeath elegance, blackened atmosphere, tectonic grooves, and Fafara‘s iconic visceral delivery.
Wasting no time, the album bursts open with the incendiary “Dig Your Own Grave,” a flurry of assault rifle kicks and crunchy riffs encircle the listener casting them into the waiting abyss before transitioning into “Dead in the Water,” showcasing the vibrant melodeath tapestries of master guitar duo Alex Lee and Gabe Mangold. “Sanctified In Scars” implements industrial pulsating beats and ethereal sonic textures, sanctifying Fafara’s venomous voice with blackened tremolo excellence. The album’s title track “Strike and Kill” is a reconciliation of hardships and lessons learned, built upon the backs of blisteringly technical riffage and dizzyingly swift drumming by Davier Perez. Tracks like “In the Moonlight” and “Never Coming Home” wrap listeners in serenely blissful guitarmonies, elevating the brutality with elegance and emotion. “Ride or Die” unleashes pure metal inertia, pulling listeners in with unrelenting force. Exemplifying their technical edge with tracks like “Headed for the Fall” and “You’re just a Ghost,” the band embraces mind-bendingly off-kilter patterns that spin listeners’ heads. “Summoning Shadows” offers the albums longest respite from carnage, with textured acoustic guitars building tension before the band comes crashing back in with triumphant power. “Shut the Silence On” and “Oath of Iron” get super thrashy with their ballsy riffage and blast beats, before “All Bets are Off” brings things to a cataclysmic conclusion.
Strike and Kill track listing:
- “Dig Your Own Grave”
- “Dead in the Water”
- “Sanctified In Scars”
- “Strike and Kill”
- “In the Moonlight”
- “Ride or Die”
- “Headed for the Fall”
- “Shut the Silence On”
- “Never Coming Home”
- “Summoning Shadows”
- “You’re just a Ghost”
- “Oath of Iron”
- “All Bets are Off”
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.