If you’re metal fan and you haven’t heard any of the deafening buzz about Heriot over the last few years, you’ve either not left your house, not been on the internet or just been wildly inattentive. Since the release of their first music back in 2020 they’ve dominated the UK and European festival circuits, supported some of metal’s titans including the mighty Lamb Of God, been toted by Metal Hammer as “British metal’s most exciting new band” and so much more. In recent years, there’s not been many bands that sound this abrasive that have this level of attention, so the pressure to produce an otherworldly debut album is very high. Fitting, then, that their highly-anticipated debut album ‘Devoured by the Mouth of Hell’ not only clears the bar they’ve set for themselves, but raises it for British metal as a whole.
A huge portion of this record does exactly what it says on the tin. If you can picture hell as a living being, its cavernous mouth agape and blazing stomach hungry, the sheer terror that you’d feel as you’re slowly lowered into that void as its dinner is the exact emotional response that this record evokes. ‘Foul Void’ is a towering opener for the record and provides the first taste of that fear, thrusting hefts of evil riffs from Ehran Alman and Debbie Gough and the throat-ripping vocals of Gough and Jake Packer into your eardrums right from the get go. ‘Harm Sequence’ provides a dose of the same with Julian Gage upping the pace with blast beats, followed by some well-placed Slayer-esque shredding lead work that shape-shifts into a sensory overwhelming breakdown.
This album does its heavy moments really, really well. ‘Sentenced to the Blade’ is a blood-curdling thrasher that feels primed for pit-chaos, fully utilising that obscenely wonderful guitar tone for maximum power. ‘At The Fortress Gate’ is a weighty headband anthem, providing the occasional nod to golden era Machine Head with its natural harmonics-riddled guitar work before exploding into a devastating end section. First single ‘Siege Lord’ is a powerhouse too, the band putting their foot fully on the gas from the very beginning and only letting up to let that ground-shaking bass tone take centre stage. These are the best songs they’ve ever written, but the album isn’t just full throttle metal ragers for close to forty minutes. It’s much more than that.
There’s a lot of sonic depth on display throughout the record, and their ability to tread in different soundscapes transforms this into something more than your typical metal album. ‘Visage’ is, to put it simply, soul-stirring. Gough’s vocals have never sounded so full and certain, not that there was ever a lack of that before, but they sound so commanding here and it resonates really strongly. The way it swells towards its cataclysmic conclusion is mesmerising, and that finale will have every single one of your goosebumps on fire. There’s also the hypnotic ‘Opaline’, Gough’s vocals creeping through the empty space like vines as the music stirs and intensifies around her. ‘Solvent Gaze’ is a slow and skulking nightmare, ‘Lashed’ is an industrial acid-trip, closing track ‘Mourn’ is a hellacious epilogue that ends proceedings with a very violent halt. It’s a breathtaking, macabre and forceful record, and easily the band’s finest work to date.
Above all else, this record exudes confidence. This is an album from a band that knows what they want from their music and exactly how to achieve it, completely unafraid to dip their toes in unfamiliar territory to enrich their sonic palette. It’s just as monstrous and terrifying as the gurn-hungry metal fans could’ve hoped for, but it’s more than just the heavy bits. The textures on display create a world that is in equal parts serene and unnerving, from the bloodthirsty buzzsaw distortion to the dreamlike reverb-drenched melodies that both send shivers down your spine for very different reasons. The contrast between those two sides and how they fill the space between them makes for an incredibly deep and fulfilling listen, and there are few records in the genre that manage to cover this much ground. The fact that this is a debut album is astounding; they are far beyond their years, and it’s nothing short of a triumph.
‘Devoured by the Mouth of Hell’ is going to elevate Heriot’s place in heavy music, not just in the UK but everywhere. If you fall into the category mentioned earlier where you’re yet to become acquainted with the band, now is the perfect time to do it. Their breakthrough to metal stardom feels more imminent than ever before.
DAVE STEWART