The Devil's Waiting

I discovered this band because of the name and the interesting cover art. Looking at the genres this band its labeled as, I went into the EP with average expectations. The Devil's Waiting did not surprise or disappoint me. I came out of Wormhole Riders with mixed feelings. On one hand, I really wanted to say that "This EP was great!" due to the very nicely performed guitars and drums this EP has to offer. On the other hand, I felt like I had wasted about 22 minutes of my life listening to amazingly average metal. The main problem here is that this EP is stuck between being heavy metal or something akin to psychedelic rock.

The reason why I say that this EP needs to be more committed is that it often flip-flops from being relaxing, soft, and slow rock to having the loud boomy sound that heavy metal has to offer. An example of this is the contrast between the second track (The Wizard) and the third one (Viking's Witch). The Wizard is one of those songs where you can zone out and slowly nod your head to the music. It then quickly flips to a louder and more punchy tone with Viking's Witch, a song that is basically the opposite of The Wizard. The Devil's Waiting is trying to have a foot in two genres when they need to stick to just one.

Another problem The Devil's Waiting has is the song length. When it comes to song lengths, different people have different opinions and that's fine. However, for The Devil's Waiting, its too long. The average song length is about 4 minutes long. For most of the tracks in this they could be trimmed down a minute or so. More often than not in this EP I found myself getting a bit tired and wondering when a certain track would end or when it would pick up the pace. Compounded onto this is the vocals that tend to be slow, have tons of reverb, and fades into the guitars.

So far, I've been pretty negative to The Devil's Waiting. It does have a really good upside to it that kept me listening to it. The guitars carried this EP heavily with Vykanthrope's guitarist knocking it out of the park. They were groovy and super smooth when it was in the slower sections and managed to make me zone out and go along with the vibes. When the music picked up the pace and went to heavy metal mode, they did so in a near perfect manner. Drums worked nicely in conjunction with the guitars too, doing their work in the background to keep this EP together.

Pros:
Really nice guitars and drums!
Groovy at some points

Cons:
Vocals that don't match the other instruments
Songs longer than they need to be
Stuck in a tug of war between two genres

In conclusion, I'd recommend parts of The Devil's Waiting to someone but not the entire EP. It's just too all over the place. If Vykanthrope is still together, I hope they can work on their flaws. If they fix those they can become something really special.