Does any industry do hyperbolic marketing like the music industry? In contrast to your classic bluechip stocks – mining, banking, pharmaceuticals and even tobacco – the music industry lives for the next big thing, the out-of-left field sensation who can blend style, looks, melody and attitude into a package guaranteed to quintuple return on investment. Some times it fails; all too often the hype ends up in the proverbial dumpster reeking of failed promises and lost glory.
So where does that leave the fresh-faced and skinny legged New Yorker Devin Therriault, aka Devin? Certainly Devin’s debut album Romancing has attracted its share of critical and popular interest: with a breakneck garage-infused ’50s styled opening track like Masochist, who wouldn’t be interested?
Or then there’s the pop-sweet Bowie-meets-Style Council Born To Cry and even the Ricky Nelson-on-angry pills I’m Not A Fool to sit up and listen to – the latter largely providing an entree for the succeeding In My Solitude.
On Run Devin hits his straps and the journey is as invigorating as a two-day speed-and-booze bender, but without the pain of recovery, Forever Is Only A Moment captures the ephemeral reality of adolescent love and You’re Mine owes a debt of gratitude to UK Squeeze, The Strokes and anyone who’s ever thrashed madly in front of their bedroom mirror. The album’s concluding track – excluding the two bonus tracks (each with a frantic edge showcasing Devin in preferred deviant rock colours) – White Leather suggests a deeper side to the generally fleeting Devin, and it’s here we can see where Devin could go, if he follows his artistic instincts.
Romancing is a good album, and Devin has more talent and potential in his fingers than the average pop starlet has stashed away in their LA mansion. But the proof will be in Devin’s staying power, and his evolution.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Best Track: You’re Mine
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: BUDDY HOLLY, THE STROKES and a whole slew of acts who almost made it (whatever happened to FAKER, anyway?)
In A Word: Slick
