Album Review: Mugshot – “All the Devils Are Here” (Metallic Hardcore)

Written by Ellis

There’s a track about halfway through Mugshot’s new album All the Devils Are Here that you could be forgiven for expecting to give you a breather. “Flesh of My Body” is 40 seconds long and it comes after a good six rounds of serrated riffing and gurning breakdowns, and it even starts a bit sparser with desperate strained vocals set to a menacing industrial stomp. But then it just kicks the shit out of you—all suffocating chugs and low-end rumble lacerated with peals of piercing dissonance. It says a lot about the album as a whole really, mainly how tightly focused it is in its delivery of violence, and crucially just how little respite it offers the listener from that over the course of its 25-minute runtime.

Hailing from San Jose, California, Mugshot have found something of a new lease on life over the last few years. In 2021 they effectively re-emerged with the Empty Heaven EP, which took on a notably harder, meaner and more metallic sound than their already pretty-fuckin’-mean 2016 debut full-length Dull Boy, and they’ve since styled out a change of vocalist with Ringo Waterman adding an even more guttural brutality to their military-grade payload, AND signed to the tastemaking Pure Noise Records for whom they made their debut with the politically-charged Cold Will EP back in 2023. All the Devils Are Here is their sophomore full-length, and hopefully it is clear enough already that it’s another thoroughly merciless bludgeoning.

Straight-up this thing just sounds fantastic. It was produced by Randy LeBoeuf and mixed and mastered by Will Putney who between them have worked with basically all the best bands one might expect to find on this album’s ‘for fans of’ list (The Acacia Strain, Chamber, Jesus Piece, Knocked Loose—you know the gang), and who therefore have no trouble granting Mugshot the meaty modern metallic hardcore sound they’re looking for. Ciro Abraham’s bass in particular is so thick and throaty and full in a way that really adds to the overall weight of the record, while guitarist Michael Demko and drummer Connor Haines both play exactly the roles that should be expected of them in providing the album’s jagged edge and lumbering heft respectively.

The tracks themselves are killer all round, but the opening run is especially strong, even if that may be for no other reason than it’s the chunk that hits you first. “Die in Fear” and “Afore a Waking Nightmare”—two of an all-too-many five singles released in the lead up to this record—kick things off with a ferocious two-parter, the former bristling with riffs and self-hatred alike, and the latter doing much the same but while turning said hatred outwards and throwing in not one but two hair-raising breakdowns for good measure. “Shame” right after that is riffier still, its high energy verses dropping into gulfs of knuckle-dragging ignorance that should come with stankface and spinkick guarantees, while sixth track “I Will Be Here Forever” rounds out a stellar first half with a load of nu-metally bounce and frantic panic chords and another monstrous breakdown that all told presents a strong contender for the best track on the record.

To be clear though, All the Devils Are Here is no less solid later on either. Penultimate track “Me and You” is another highlight, this one crushing and hateful and super chug-heavy even by Mugshot’s standards, while closer “Next to Your Idols” offers a vitriolic critique of celebrity culture and those that use their platforms to exploit others, with the music itself taking on a menacing and somewhat more atmospheric air that works really well at the end of the record in particular. 

Lyrically and thematically, All the Devils Are Here maintains the political, left-leaning stance of its predecessor Cold Will, albeit this time it’s less “fuck them” and more “see how they’ve fucked us.” It appeals to the more personal emotions that people are driven to under late-stage capitalism, to doubt and rage and hatred and despair, all with a hefty dose of religious imagery that reflects some of the band’s upbringing in the church, and more importantly for them their rejection of said upbringing today. It’s definitely aiming for catharsis too, and whether you find that’s up to you, but either way sometimes it sure does feel good just to think about burning it all down doesn’t it?

THE BOTTOM LINE

Look, All the Devils Are Here is not pretty and it’s not particularly clever, but it is big and mean and pissed as anything and sometimes that’s just better. 25 minutes, what are you waiting for?