It’s been a hot minute since we heard anything from Devil Sold His Soul, the UK’s master of popping out of nowhere with music and then disappearing again. Personally, the last few releases didn’t float my boat or tickle my whistle. They lacked the bite of A Fragile Hope and the lush sounds of Blessed & Cursed. But fuck my opinion because the band have released a fantastic new single, “The Reckoning”, and it is a beast. More than just a delicious new slab of metallic post music, all proceeds from this are going straight to Martel’s Hospice in Brighton, the hospice responsible for the care of Tom Searle of Architects.
“The Reckoning” is obviously a very personal track and far be it for me to take anything from what it means to the band. Their words are the important ones here:
“We have been a band for over 12 years. Along the way we have met some of the best people and shared some of our most treasured memories. But, as in life, those good times are inevitably interrupted by more testing ones. This song represents our struggle as a band and as individuals during those most difficult moments and reflects on how we got through them and moved forward.
“It’s been 2 years since we last released new material and they’ve been pretty tough years for us. I began to question the existence of the band, I think we all did at times.
This song is about dark days, it’s right from the heart, it’s as honest as I could be about recent times and it tells of our struggle and a hope that we’re beyond it.” – Paul Green
The band go on to explain why they decided to donate any money raised from the sale of the track, speaking of the camaraderie of being musicians coming up in the same scene and in the same era as Searle. It’s a rare moment for me to write about something like this as 90% of the time I value human life as highly as the gum stuck to my shoe. This feels different though. I don’t even want to get into the track itself, even though it is fantastic, as it is the gesture that made me feel compelled to share this here. It’s great that one of my favourite UK bands is back with music that I am super excited about but it’s far more fulfilling to help share this sentiment.
I will say this though. It would have been some sight to see Tom blast this on stage with these guys.