Donner & The Devil Archive

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New York guitarist and mad scientist Dan Walsh is involved in a staggering number of projects both in his own capacity as a songwriter, as a formidable metal vocalist, as a collaborator and gun-for-hire - but perhaps the most fascinating is his experimental, instrumental, prog / metal project under the name Donner & The Devil.

There exists no box you could stuff Donner into, no borders Walsh doesn’t trample on as soon as they’re demarcated, no begging for your approval, no sparing your feelings or your right brain.

Just unbridled, anguished, howling rage and despair and a mischievous sneer to it all that is - dare I say - devilish? It’s challenging, certainly not for everyone - and Walsh knows it - and he refreshingly doesn’t seem to give a shit.

Every instrument is a universe unto itself, and each of those universes sits perfectly inside the multiverse that is the song, and it all makes sense, against all odds. I confess that I don’t know how you go about recording or commissioning drums for something like this, but it feels like it was all hive-minded. The wavelength congruency required for things to gel to this degree is astonishing.

This reviewer likely doesn’t possess the requisite musical vocabulary to highlight half of what’s so brilliant on this album, and that’s fine. Suffice it to say that it’s a document best experienced as a whole, so that the listener has time to let their attention drift from one element to another, to integrate how intellectually coherent it all feels while still coming off like a swirl of absolute chaos.

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