Review & Full Album Premiere: Ruff Majik, The Devil’s Cattle
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on October 29th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream Ruff Majik’s The Devil’s Cattle in full. Album is out Oct. 30 on Mongrel Records and can be ordered here: https://orcd.co/thedevilscattle]
Well then. With their first offering for new imprint Mongrel Records, The Devil’s Cattle, South African heavy rockers Ruff Majik not only complete a three-albums-in-three-years trilogy, but they do so by working at a completely new level in terms of their craft and composition. Formerly the trio of guitarist/vocalist Johni Holiday, bassist Jimmy Glass and drummer Benni Manchino, the lineup has now expanded to a five-piece to include keyboardist/backing vocalist Cowboy Van (also guitar, bass, harmonica on the LP) and guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Evert Snyman, who also produced and mixed the band’s first two full-lengths, 2019’s Tårn (review here) and 2018’s Seasons (review here), and returns to that role here as well.
Perhaps even more crucially, Snyman and Holiday seem to share songwriting duties throughout, and with swaps back and forth in lead vocals like that of “Lead Pills and Thrills,” and shifts in instrumentation between fuzzed-addled guitar, various keys and piano, periodic samples, etc., it’s hard to judge whether The Devil’s Cattle is more brazen in the step forward it takes conceptually or in all-out speed rockers like the opener “All You Need is Speed” — which, suitably enough, begins with tires peeling out — and subsequent thrusters “Heart Like an Alligator,” “Jolly Rodger,” “Who Keeps Score” and “Trading Blows.”
All told, the 13-track offering tops 51 minutes, which is an uptick from Tårn‘s unassuming 36, but Ruff Majik legitimately sound like a band with plenty to say, and as Holiday and Snyman play off each other as creative foils, the dynamic that emerges — as well as some of the tones, rush, arrangements, and Ale and Cake Illustration cover art — recalls Queens of the Stone Age circa Songs for the Deaf, with The Devil’s Cattle benefiting in a similar fashion from the multiple-personalities behind its songwriting. Who’s Oliveri and who’s Homme and who’s Mark Lanegan in all that mix seems to depend on the track — and when they slam into the scream-topped sludge of the seven-minute “Born to be Bile” late in the proceedings (a seeming sequel to “Seasoning the Witch” from the last record), nobody’s anybody — but most important of all is that as Ruff Majik have entered this next stage of growth, they’ve accorded themselves creative freedom to coincide.
Having previously handled all writing on his own, Holiday opening the floor to give any space whatsoever for Snyman for anyone else in that regard is a huge decision in terms of how The Devil’s Cattle plays out, whether it’s early mid-tempo groovers like “Swine Tooth Grin” and “Shrug of the Year” — the dual solos in the back half of which make it a highlight — or the funkified, handclap-inclusive “Gregory,” which precedes the starts, stops, twists, shifts and rolls of the title-track. It does nothing less than to make Ruff Majik a richer, less predictable outfit, and with guests Xan Stewart and Timothy Edwards on drums, Christiaan Van Reenen on keys and Vincent Houde on vocals (for “Born to be Bile”), further personality outside the founding trio is added to the proceedings and the Holiday/Snyman chemistry, which is central here as Glass, Manchino and Van don’t seem to appear on the album.
As regards timing, it’s worth noting that’s not a choice related to pandemic concerns; The Devil’s Cattle was recorded between Sept. 2019 and Feb. 2020, so before any lockdown would’ve come into effect. And what it might portend in terms of future incarnations of the band as a whole, I don’t know, but Holiday and Snyman both handling multi-instrumentalist/vocalist duties certainly works here, with the manic “Go with the Flow”-esque key line behind the shove of centerpiece “Jolly Roger” leading into the back half of the album, backed by the solid hook, strut and run of “Who Keeps Score,” the late break in which likewise stands out in post-Homme fashion, and “Lead Pills and Thrills,” which is a high point in bringing together Snyman and Holiday in a genuine vocal arrangement. Momentum by that point in The Devil’s Cattle is well set and maintained, and “Trading Blows” rounds out a four-songs-under-four-minutes succession with a slowdown and shouts that not only pull forth some of Ruff Majik‘s underlying metal influences, but act as further setup for “Born to be Bile,” a bleak gateway to the final stage of The Devil’s Cattle.
Vocals switch back and forth between Holiday‘s higher register — there are times on the record where he reminds of Axl Rose meeting John Garcia — and what are presumably Houde‘s guest screams, given a kind of gurgling compression effect, and to go with that is a tortured lumbering of the sort that most bands simply wouldn’t dare having spent so much of their time otherwise rocking out. But it’s not necessarily out of character for Ruff Majik, and one way or the other, they’ve clearly decided that The Devil’s Cattle is not a time to hold anything back. That continues to be the case as “Born to be Bile” fulfills its final cacophony and the subdued “God Knows” begins its linear build quietly paying off in equal amounts of fuzz and emotion, and the plod resumes with “Hymn No. 5,” the closing instrumental that’s topped with nothing but samples.
Crushing in a seeming answer to “Born to be Bile,” “Hymn No. 5” is as suitable an ending for The Devil’s Cattle as anything else one might come up with, since it’s unexpected right down to its final march outward, feedback, tom runs and cymbal wash, coming apart like the very opposite of “All You Need is Speed” and seeming all the more intentional for that. It’s hard to know what The Devil’s Cattle might portend in terms of Ruff Majik‘s lineup circumstances, if they’ll keep the five-piece configuration for live performances (and that’s before you get into who-the-hell-knows-when-tours-will-happen) and move forward with Holiday and Snyman along with others in the studio, or what their next LP might bring in terms of sound and development along the lines of songwriting and arrangement. But isn’t that also what makes it so exciting?
At least part of it. Certainly the sheer energy conjured throughout The Devil’s Cattle has a role to play in that regard, but there is something extra satisfying about not knowing where Ruff Majik might go next. That plays out across this collection of songs — and, indeed, often within the songs themselves — and in the bigger-picture sphere of who they are and their aesthetic. And even as they realize the potential of their first two full-lengths in such encompassing fashion, they may yet still just be getting started. It is astonishing to think their first EP only came out five years ago.
