Chris Devotion & The Expectations released their debut album Amalgamation & Capital at the end of January via Armellodie Records. At an exhaustive sixteen tracks it’s a blue print for their frantic rhythms, polemic self-revelatory lyrics and searing vocal harmonies that thunder across vast, dark(often) uninhabited landscapes of the highlands.
Based in Glasgow, Scotland, Devotion cut his teeth executing riotous performances in such glamorous locations as a disused nunnery and a fetish club, garnering ringing endorsements along the way from his rock’n’roll peers (both John Reiss of Rocket From The Crypt fame and Titus Andronicus have openly declared their admiration).
Key album tracks include the swaggering rock fireball of opening track ‘A Modest Refusal’ that hints at the early twangs of The Replacements while Chris’ snarling vocal inhabits the defiant spirit of post punk are carried aloft on a sea of distorted guitars shards, twitching drums and double barrelled backings. ‘ It’s a let’s bust open this dead end town of little opportunity anthem that kicks the current government in the nuts(“Let me tell you that you should know better, when they say that we’re in this together”) . It encourages a communality that The Hold Steady or Bruce Springsteen have possessed before them. It’s fucking cracking! Elsewhere the 50s rocker ‘The Girl Is Leaving’ replete with urgent Hammond organs and swirling guitar riffs, fires down the motorway leaving loss in it’s wake a trail of wrecked relationships.
A mixture of the intensely personal set against the backdrop of economic decline and political dissatisfaction and how the two associate with each other it’s this that is at the heart of Amalgamation & Capital . Devotion explains-
“Relationships (amalgamation) on a subconscious level are a matter of what we want from the other person (their capital); what they offer us. But in a more literal sense there is the economic meaning of these words and to a large degree I still believe that your life choice/options and how you relate to people is still influenced by class. So even relationship-y stuff still has an economic/power aspect“
Recorded and mixed with producer Andy Miller (Sons & Daughters, Life Without Buildings, The Delgados) at his own Gargleblast Studios in just ten days, Amalgamation & Capital was tracked at a furious pace, bringing about a whirlwind of sweltering performances. In a musical landscape that is crying out for this kind of intensity of sound and message: Chris Devotion & The Expectations demand to be heard in 2012!
www.chrisdevotion.com
www.armellodie.com
