Genre: Melodic Death metal
Line up:
Atte Pasanen - Guitars, Keyboards
Delacroix - Vocals
The journey of The Devout began in spring, 2003, when guitarist Atte Pasanen had his first ideas of some potential songs in mind. Some more depth was added a little later as keyboarder Juho Yksjärvi joined in with new melodies. In early summer 2003 lyrics and drums were greatly needed and so vocalist Aslak Michael and drummer Henry Heinonen joined the crew. The idea was to create a death metal band which included melodic and folkish influences, and fall 2003 anchored this basis strongly as the first steps of the “epic, melodic, folkish, deathmetal“-band were taken.
Training continued in spring 2004 and songs like “Midnight Feast“, “Where Gales Veiled The Moon“ and “...And The Harvester Proclaimed“ began to take shape, however the names of the songs were different at that time and major lyrical changes were made by Aslak as the process went on. At some point Atte and Aslak started also to think about a proper name for the band, which became an unexpectedly complex task to deal with.
At the end of summer 2004 the whole idea and concept of the band had strengthened and grown a lot while the existing songs were turning into more ambitious and complex musical pieces. At that time the band was more and more in need of a capable bass player and soon Teemu Pellonpää, who was (is) actually a drummer, joined the line-up to beef up the lower frequencies. The band grew mentally and now it also had a much clearer view of its own thing. In consequence keyboarder Juho left the band because of ideological reasons – the anti-religious aspect of the band was just way too insuperable for him.
Due to the lack of time and interest drummer Henry had to leave the band, too and so it was time to enthrone Teemu as drummer of the band. In fall 2004 Atte´s childhood friend Heikki Hiekkanen joined the band as second guitarist and thanks to some bitter seeking the band found Tiia Savelius to play the synth. The band was now already a quintet but still in search of a good bassist. The band´s name hadn´t been confirmed yet.
As winter drew nearer the band had built up a stronger basis of committed musicians than anyone of the band could have imagined in spring earlier that year – and the songs kept developing. In spring 2005 the band finally found a bass player, Eero Saukkonen, and Aslak came up with a short but ironically distinct and fitting name for the band. All members agreed on “The Devout“ and another part of the band´s identity was specified. The musical style of the band had evolved into a cocktail of different genres – classifying it into a single genre had become impossible. During spring 2005 rehearsing continued and the first demo was recorded.
Where Gales Veiled The Moon received good feedback and later on in summer The Devout played a gig at the Kuilun Partaalla-festival. New material kept developing during fall, and The Devout also paid a visit to the land of the undead, where they found a bass playing zombie called Tommi Rintala. Due to his major skills in the craft of bass shredding it was inevitable that he joined the band. In winter 2006 The Devout performed a gig at Sepänkeskus. Plans for the second demo were made slowly but surely during spring and the positively nerve wrecking recording process began in late summer and continued during fall. As winter finally knocked on the gates of the unholy chapel, The Paradox Of Salvation was about to be released...
12.2.2007 The Devout h decided to split up, due to the fact that most of the members will spread out into this wretched world and begin with their studies in different cities/countries. Atte Pasanen is going to move to Kuopio, Mothra Pellonpää to Lahti (or Tampere...or will remain in bloody Jyväskylä), Tiia Savelius and Aslak to Berlin/Germany.
2008 band had light of hope and Atte Pasanen and Delacroix (Alterblood) joined forces to rise The Devout from the ashes.