Welcome to Demo:listen, your weekly peek into the future of underground metal. Whether it’s death, grind, black, doom, sludge, heavy, progressive, stoner, retro, post-, etc. we’re here to bring you the latest demos from the newest bands. On this week’s Demo:listen, we take the t-top for a cruise back to the late 70s with Boston’s Devil’s Dare.
DEVIL’S DARE
When you’re Chris Corry (of Magic Circle, Stone Dagger, etc.) even your “shelved” material is solid gold. Now, for lack of a better term, with his new side-project with none other than drummer Justin DeTore (Magic Circle, Innumerable Forms, Stone Dagger, etc.) Corry reveals to the masses what a versatile and creative metal force he truly is. Devil’s Dare, in recent Corry tradition, strives to sound like those days when metal was in its glorious, denim-clad infancy. But besides missing Brendan Radigan on vox, Devil’s Dare is neither doom-laden nor sword-wielding like Magic Circle or Stone Dagger, respectively. Instead DD is a wind-in-the-hair, mirrored shades-low-on-the-nose drive down Scorpions Way and there’s a Deep Purple sunset in the rear view mirror and riding shotgun’s a real looker in a cut-off KISS shirt.
Additionally we at Demo:listen were pleasantly surprised to find out that despite his staggering and multifaceted talent, Corry’s a down-to-earth, quick-to-reply, total metal brother. And modest on top. Corry says: “Not sure if [Devil’s Dare]’s going to be like a ‘real’ band yet, just kind of clearing out some old songs from the backlog before I’m onto the next thing.”

But if there’s something else about Devil’s Dare, something you can’t quite put your finger on, something besides the fact that it sounds exactly like some sticky old cassette you’d find under your older brother’s truck seat, we know exactly what it is you’re trying to place. Explains Corry: “Originally, [the Devil’s Dare songs] were going to potentially be Stone Dagger songs but that project kind of took a different turn, and I’m not really the captain of that ship so I just shelved these tracks. I contacted Professor Black [High Spirits, Dawnbringer, Aktor, etc.] out of the blue because I had demos of these songs and just really wanted to finish them. I thought – maybe this guy would want to sing or write some lyrics or something when I was listening to High Spirits one day. I asked a mutual acquaintance for a way to get in touch with him, and he was super nice and receptive to lending a hand. I think he kind of gave it the kick start it needed to finally become fully realized.” All of which makes sense–at least to us here at Demo:listen, because not only is Prof. Black’s influence apparent all over the first half of Demonstration 2016, but the last two tracks, “Countess” and “Into the Sky,” sound especially more like Stone Dagger tracks. What makes way less sense is why Corry’s waited so long to unveil those pipes. “I’ve sung in punk bands before but that was more like yelling,” Corry says. “This was the first extensive vocal turn that I’ve done that wasn’t like that.”
Heads up: Corry says “cassettes are in production now.”
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