REVIEW: Mugshot - All The Devils Are Here

Metallic hardcore act Mugshot are back with an album that is foaming at the mouth in its excitement to beat you into submission. All The Devils Are Here takes everything you already knew about the band and dials it up to 11, for a devastating trip that takes comfortably less than half an hour.

Opener ‘Die In Fear’ let’s rip on the new release with all the subtlety of a brick to the teeth. Mugshot have clearly decided to go for the more abrasive, aggressive route compared to before - which wasn’t exactly a light breezy park walk of a sound at best - and slam the listener in the face with the sonic equivalent of a rotating saw. ‘Afore A Waking Nightmare’ takes this, ups it, and gives it back - there is nothing but vitriol layered into this beast of a song.

‘Shame’ scratches at the breakdown itch in all of us, with the latter half just about ready to break some DIY venue doors completely off of their hinges. Combined with some interesting rhythm blends and abominably heavy tone, it makes for a very healthy wake up call if you somehow had fallen asleep so far. ‘Vale of Tears’ takes a trip to riff central. It doesn’t pass go, nor does it collect £200. It just takes the listener all the way to the gnarliest riffs the band has to play, and that’s a beautiful thing.

It’s metaphorically time for half time on ‘Skin the Rabbit’ - whilst it’s still comfortably in the first half of the record, the drumming will get you screwing your face up into that gurniest of gurns and keep it there all song through. Almost belying the album so far until the guitar kicks in, ‘I Will Be Here Forever’ opens with some triphop-esque drums that then mutate into a full-on groovy metallic hardcore throwdown, which ebbs and flows to let the pit breathe - before suffocating it under layers of screams and distortion yet again.

Next up, marking the turning point of half way, comes ‘Flesh Of My Body’ - an incredibly brief interlude that is as abrasive as anything you’ll hear this year. Under 40 seconds long, once you hear the song title prepare to be ripped asunder by mosher after mosher after mosher. At around three minutes long, ‘Baptized in Concrete’ is a prog rock epic by Mugshot’s standards. However, unlike the average prog rock epic, this makes you want to throw people off of stages at other people in a disgracefully punishing display of musical hatred for the listener.

‘Where Your Sins Will Lie’ includes something that brings out a very specific grin - that being, the Cheshire Cat style smile that only happens when a particularly grating pick slide graces your eardrums, Gojira style. This song feels like it could be the best embodiment of the album cover out of those on the record, portraying the abstract furious demonic image on the LP perfectly. Coming in tenth out of the twelve is the title track, ‘All The Devils Are Here’. Combining the atmospheric touches the band occasionally utilise with the weighty distortion of their guitars and gutturals, the track is more than worth titular placement, and takes no prisoners whatsoever in its quest to obliterate any listeners or onlookers.

‘Me & You’ brings a lovely touch of china cymbal to proceedings that was certainly present, but not as consistently used, and it’s incredibly welcome. The track is filled with nasty noise and rough vocals, with a few gang vocals spattered throughout to keep the hardcore influence as loud and proud as possible. Album finale ‘Next To Your Idols’ opens with an incredibly hard line - “I’ve got a bullet engraved with your name” is an excellent opening, that also happens to tee up the rest of the song brilliantly. With crushing breakdowns, riffs, and more brilliant vocals, the album finishes as strong as it has been at any moment throughout.

Whilst the album doesn’t break masses of new ground across its run time, what it attempts to do it does extremely well. The riffs are groundshattering, the breakdowns are apoplectic, the vocals are hellish, and Mugshot manage to condense eleven full songs and one interlude into a short, sharp, twenty five minute ride. All The Devils Are Here is a powerful example of the heaviest sound this band have consistently put out thus far, and if they were looking for heaviness then this is a surefire success story.

Score: 8/10

All The Devils Are Here was released on June 20th 2025.

Words: Jake Longhurst

Photos: Mugshot