Album Review: No Devotion - 'Permanence'

It’s been a pretty rough two or so weeks for the guys in No Devotion. The quintet just dropped their debut album, ‘Permanence’, and that should be an awesome, joyous occasion for the band – made up of every member of Lostprophets (sans the appropriately incarcerated Ian Watkins) and Thursday’s singer Geoff Rickly – but that sadly won’t be the case.

There has been a severely unfortunate marring of this occasion in that an investor behind Collect Records - the band's label - Martin Shkreli, reportedly upped the price of life-saving medication for AIDS/HIV and cancer patients from its going rate of $13.50USD to about $750USD – per goddamned pill. On top of all that, Rickly was recently poisoned and robbed while on tour in Germany.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Well, as expected, the band and the label have since severed ties with Shkreli – because duh - and the band is still out their touring right now, so they definitely aren’t going to let life get them down. Now for those unaware, No Devotion is Thursday in all but the name, with a similar sound following on from the group’s final album, 2010’s ‘No Devolución‘. So Thursday fans should feel right at home, and one can easily tell that this is more than likely the kind of record that Rickly wanted his former endeavour to eventually create.

As for ‘Permanence’ itself, it is a beautifully layered, textured album that‘s filled with spacey ambience, soothingly atmospheric synth lines, giant, fuzzy guitar riffs, large, booming drums, all of which underpin the ethereal vocal melodies. These 11 grand and wondrous songs all feel so fleshed out, so necessary for the release as a whole, and so immediately loveable, that this is by long and far one of the better records of 2015. Big words, we know. This kind of quality so early on in a band’s career can be mainly attributed to the pedigree from which No Devotion’s members come from, thus the promise of any future material is incredibly tantalising.

Again, much like Thursday, there’s a very strong emotional and poetic vibe to record, and yet it doesn't feel forced; on the contrary, it feels as natural as breathing. These songs are all immediately loveable, whether it be the romantically bittersweet ‘Addition’, the heart-warming ’10,000 Summers’, the up-beat and danceable ‘Stay’, the cacophonous 'Grand Central', or the soaring ‘Permanent Sunlight‘; there isn’t a bad song to be found on this album.

Finally, one admirable thing about the mix and overall production of this record is that instead of just going for a flash-in-the-pan mix with large dollops of sonic polish, there’s this strong 90’s feel to the production. Thus, the songs really do the talking here, and that’s how it should be. Furthermore, and maybe this is a bit of a jump, but the overall tone and instrumentation of ‘Permanence’ is quite reminiscent of Bring Me The Horizon’s latest, ‘That’s The Spirit’, which isn't a bad thing at all.

‘Permanence’ is a stunning debut from a band with an immense pedigree behind it, as well as the musical talent to back it all up. The best album’s make you hungry for more, for listen after listen and that’s exactly what this record does. To some there was absolutely no doubt that No Devotion’s first outing would have been one to remember - which it is - and with the recent negative and very unfortunate events inadvertently surrounding them, hopefully everything from here on in is buttery smooth.

1. Break

2. Permanent Sunlight

3. Eyeshadow

4. Why Can’t I Be With You?

5. I Wanna Be Your God

6. Death Rattle

7. 10,000 Summers

8. Night Drive

9. Stay

10. Addition

11. Grand Central