The Unity - The Devil You Know (Live) Review

My dear fan will back me up in this. There is an old saying in Metal music that best albums are alive. There are songs that are pretty tasteless in the studio album and, suddenly, when it comes to the alive album the song makes a turn around and gets to be something really warm and tasteful. Maybe it’s the alive miracle. Here with “The Devil You Know (Live)” not only the songs but also the band acquire a higher level. The Unity sound really heavy and powerful alive. I have to say that they sound much better alive than in the studio. No overreaction but the feling is that I’m with the crowd during the gig waving my hands in the air or air guitarring – show of hands who’s never.

A well-known Metal academic, Deena Weinstein, once said that the show is the natural place for a Metal band. Metal shows are a kind of catarsis of the Metal crowd and, of course, of the band. It’s the place where both feel extremely at home and comfy. It’s impossible not to strongly agree with her while listening to an album like this. It’s fabulous to get to know that we’ve had the extreme pleasure of reviewing all the three albums of the band: 2017’s debut “The Unity,” its following 2018’s “Rise,” and 2020’s “Pride.” So all of the songs performed here are very own known. To listen to them alive gives a different kind of feeling. They got more powerful and tasteful. It’s also great to know that “The Devil You Know (Live)” was recorded between 2017 and 2020 during tours through Germany and a number of other European countries, at shows in small, overheated clubs with sweat dripping from the walls, but also at big festivals such as the Masters of Rock in the Czech Republic and in Germany at the Karlsruhe Knockout Festival and the Bang Your Head in Balingen. Smaller places have the power to make the band sound hotter and big places give the exact measure of the band. It’s the so-called try by fire. well, as a matter of fact alive are also trials by fire, if you know what I’m saying. The interaction with the crowd is really something that makes the band.

This album isn’t only for the fan that enjoys alive albums but also to the ones thta really appreciate Metal bands in action.

The Unity “The Devil You Know (Live)” will be released on November 12th via Steamhammer / SPV Records.

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