Ready to move on to a new path in his career, Mike Spreitzer has quit Devildriver after 20 years in the band. Citing the inactivity of Devildriver as a touring band, claiming that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, several illnesses within the band and their families, and personal issues, these things have impeded the band as a regular entity. Mike also threw shade to at least one current member, regarding the creation and release of music from his new band. Mike is moving on to work full-time on his other band Verona on Venus, and perhaps this will open up an opportunity to join another touring band. Mike joined Devildriver after they released their self-titled debut album in 2003, replacing their co-founding guitarist Evan Pitts. Mike has played on nine of the ten Devildriver albums to date. He says in his posts on his social media accounts that he wishes the split to be amicable, and offers good luck to the continuing members of the band. Mike is the second guitarist to split with the band in recent years as Neal Tiemann was officially dismissed from the band in 2022. Devildriver recently postponed their 2024 tour dates to spring of 2025 due to a sudden illness from frontman Dez Fafara. The band’s latest album Dealing With Demons Vol.2 is out now via Napalm Records. Continue reading
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ALBUM REVIEW: DevilDriver – Dealing With Demons Vol. II
Dez Fafara is a man who needs little introduction, having arrived on the scene at the height of the nu-metal explosion with Coal Chamber, whose debut album landed in 1997 to provide Roadrunner Records with a band to rival the impact that the likes of Korn and Deftones were having on the genre. But when relationships started to turn sour in Coal Chamber signaling the end of their initial run, rather than fading into obscurity, the larger-than-life vocalist reinvented himself for round two of his unique career in metal, with DevilDriver.
ALBUM REVIEW: Devildriver – Dealing With Demons I
The first part of a double release (the second half due next year), the latest offering from prolific Californian melodic death metallers DevilDriver finds the band in cathartic form, as each song on the band’s ninth album, Dealing With Demons I (Napalm Records) focuses on a different type of obstacle or demon to be faced and overcome.