Band: Devil Sold His Soul
Album title: Blessed & Cursed
Label: Century Media
Distributor: EMI
Release date: 12/07/2010
Release: CD

This song contains at least three songs which are in my personal top ten of best songs I’ve heard so far in 2010. I really can’t give you one negative point about this album. It moves you from the beginning to the end. It still sounds like Devil Sold His Soul, but they have developed in such a way that they have become even more unique.

In an interview, the band claimed that the album tries to show that even when things are really bad, there’s always that hope and optimism that things can really pick up. This sounds like a difficult concept to show on an album, especially musically, but after having listened once to the album, I can say that their attempt to do this, is a big success! When listening to Blessed & Cursed, it feels like you’re getting punched in the face for nearly an hour in slow motion, but that the punches still come swinging down on you with an immense weight, like you’ve never felt before. Almost every song starts very smoothly and very modest. In the first song, "Tides", it almost feels like you’re floating through a clear sky, until the blasting sound of Devil Sold His Soul grasps around your throat. This song is the shortest song on the album, but it’s one of the best songs I’ve heard so far this year. The sharp contrast between the screams of the singer, Ed, and the blasting sound of Devil Sold His Soul is just magically. In most of the songs there also are lots of musical intermezzos, as in "Drowning/Sinking". This makes the songs very long (6-8 minutes), but they are necessary to exhale the atmosphere which makes this band so unique. The lyrics are mostly about nature, which is clearly noticeable in "Callous Heart". In the beginning of the song, you can hear rain drops falling into the water. "Crane Lake" must be the most dynamic song on Blessed & Cursed and I even think that this is the very best song I’ve heard this year.

When listening to the album, you feel like you’re facing a wall of sound. Therefore, the intermezzos are more than welcome. Definitely the most thrilling and unique album of 2010 !

98/100

Nick Tronckoe.