Music Review // Devin James Fry "PURPLE GLUE, NO HOPE" (ft. Otem Rellik, Nat Tate) (Old Faithful Records)

https://open.spotify.com/album/66vIA1hzkZCmfpHOhp3ehE?si=P4CHoqrYTeOv8ykDnX1Ebw&nd=1

Within just these two songs, Devin James Fry has crafted such a wonderful world of music with a sound that can borrow from other places but also come back to be identified only with the song itself.  While there is an underlying theme to both songs, an industrial / electronic / darkwave sort of vibe about them both, each song is distinguishable in their own rights just the same.

"Purple Glue" has this trippy sound which just has a nice groove.  It feels a bit like if Tom Waits was pioneering early (and I'm talking early 1990's) Marilyn Manson or just something that has that distorted goth rock feel to it.   The song can feel electronic like video games just as easily as it can take a turn to the distorted.   Lines like: "One person but I feel like two / Sometimes like three or four" show you what it's about and most people should be able to relate with this.

At the same time, "No Hope" comes on next and has this similar way about it with the beats, but there is spoken word which makes it feel more like a distorted hip hop melody.  Somewhere between the sounds of Blue October, AWOLNATION, Kottonmouth Kings and other bands who combine these sounds is where this song is.  The line: "Now that I have no hope / Ask me if I'm hopeless / Oh, no" becomes a mantra and that shows how great this song would be as a radio single.

While both of these songs can fit into a similar genre, the fact remains that they are also intriguing because listening to them as two and wondering what an album of ten or twelve would sound like raises a lot of questions.    The way that the sound could expand and become even more genre-defying just makes me want to hear more music by Devin James Fry.  For now though, I will listen to these two songs whenever I can to prepare for such an occasion.