Heriot – ‘Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell’ [Album Review]

Ever since they exploded onto the scene in 2022 with their Profound Morality EP, British metallic hardcore troop Heriot has gone from strength to strength. Shifting from the awesome Church Road Records to their new home Century Media Records, for this, their debut album should only see their profile grow. Not that they’ll need any help because, quite frankly, Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell is an astonishing debut.

Not that this news should come as any surprise because, let’s face it, if you have caught the band on any of the tours or festivals they’ve jumped on in the past eighteen months, you’ll be fully aware of how truly devastating Heriot is. Well, you think you are. Let me tell you that you ain’t seen nothing yet. As the album screeches into life with the recent single “Foul Void,” Heriot ready you for thirty-five minutes of musical terror. A dense, chaotic slice of hardcore wreckage, “Foul Void” kind of sets you up for the upcoming onslaught, but only just.

For the rest of this incredible album, Heriot takes you on a sense-shaking rollercoaster of a ride through an experience layered with so many twists and turns that, by the time “Harm Sequence” kicks in, you’ve no idea what is around the next corner. It could be all-out audio carnage as the dual brutal vocals pinball off each other, or it could be more haunting moments like “Opaline,” where the sound may be more refined but nonetheless dense or utterly fucking terrifying for it.

Throughout Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell, this juggernaut of metallic hardcore fury shows few moments of relenting as “At The Fortress Gate” tramples over your head while, preceding it, “Lashed” shows a more experimental, harsher side to their suffocating sound.

Heriot’s stock has risen dramatically over the past eighteen months and they head into the next chapter of their career with an album that will propel them right up the ladder. As beautifully tense as it is car-crash chaotic, Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell is a stunning piece of work from a band whose creativity shows no boundaries and this leaves us both terrified and excited at where they can go from here.

Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell Track Listing:

1. Foul Void
2. Harm Sequence
3. Opaline
4. Siege Lord
5. Sentenced to the Blade
6. Solvent Gaze
7. Lashed
8. At the Fortress Gate
9. Visage
10. Mourn

Run Time: 35:44
Release Date: September 27th, 2024
Record Label: Century Media Records