SMOTHER JAN 2006
"Push The Heart" review
Devics quaintly deliver twirl dreamy pop musings with divine and catchy shoegazing melodies creating songs that are immense and luxurious in depth. But while there may be songs that lack brevity, their songs are not so overtly artistic and complex that they're far from pop. Devics consists of female vocalist Sara Lov and her sometime partner in music, multi-instrumentalist and producer Dustin O'Hallaran. Sara was raised by her single mother until she was abducted by her father who whisked her off to Israel eventually being repatriated by a friendly uncle. This checkered past seems to linger on in her lyrics which tend to offer a slight edge of melancholy and are deceptively delivered with tenderness. The productions and rhymes are amazing seeming to marry indie pop with artsy rock. The songwriting is beyond top-notch almost touching songs off to become instant classics by itself, let alone the musicianship. An amazing duo that transpires expectations fueling intense fondness in the music underground for female-fronted outfits once again.

MAGNET AUG 2005
Devics - "Distant Radio" EP review
FIRST EXPUSURE
The duo of singer Sara Lov and multi-instrumentalist/singer Dustin O'Halloran escaped from L.A. and into the Italian country side to record the five-song "Distant Radio". What transpires sounds like a summit meeting of mood-rock all-stars under the Tuscan sun: love thrills a Radiohead-like lullaby for 'Just One Breath', and O'Halloran is a dead ringer for Smog's Bill Callahan on 'Song For A Sleeping Girl'. With additional hints of Cat Power, Lambchop and the Tindersticks, this "Radio" transmits impeccable taste.

LAWEEKLY JAN 2004
It’s fascinating to peruse Europe’s online bulletin boards for a better understanding of the peculiar style of the L.A.-bred but Italy-based musical collective Devics, this month’s Tuesday-night residents at Tangier: “I’ve never heard anything like them,” writes Vlad; “Can’t quite decide what it is about them,” states Jon; “I can’t nail them to a specific genre,” submits Jen. I agree. With piano parts that equally evoke Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and the cabarets of 1920’s Berlin, guitar lines that jump from Portishead’s ‘60s spy revivalism to postmodern folk-rock, and vocal melodies that seem to fuse Mazzy Star and Edith Piaf, the music of Devics not only defies association with genre, but era. Luckily, the descriptions are a lot clearer when it comes to the quality of the music: “Amazing,” writes Vlad, and once again, I agree.
- Liam Gowing

THE BIG TAKEOVER #53
This is one band that I wish was more prolific, but I suppose you actually have to wait for quality. L.A.’s Devics deliver just that with this album, delivering yet another collection of absolutely beautiful and haunting melodies. Vocalist Sara Lov’s voice is so gorgeous and creepy that these songs just stick deep in your head and won’t let go - she could sing about grocery shopping and make it sound like some arcane ritual involving heartbreak and murder - while multi-instrumentalist Dustin O’Halloran’s arrangements are deceptively simple and poignant, incorporating everything from music boxes to Southwest-style steel pedal to theremin to wonderful, wonderful piano work. There’s also supposedly a video on this CD for the song “Red Morning,” but until I get the bugs off my drive from the last “enhanced CD” I watched, I’m not putting any more CDs into my computer.
- Holly Day

LA WEEKLY MAY 2004
“Follow me to nowhere,” Devics chanteuse Sara Lov urges on “Don’t Take It Away,” from the recent Ribbons EP, intoning with a confessional intimacy that somehow makes nothingness seem wonderfully inviting. Partner Dustin O’Halloran shrouds Lov’s torchy reveries with waves of synth, meditatively throbbing bass and subtle guitar shimmers to similarly lulling effect on Devics’ most recent full-length, 2003’s The Stars at Saint Andrea (Bella Union). It’s not clear what Lov’s singing about when she confides, “Streams of streets/that seem to change you,” on “Red Morning,” but the ballad unfolds with a languid glassiness that’s ultimately quite spellbinding. These bicontinental mood-merchants have just returned to their L.A. hometown after another long European sojourn, and are already at work on their next album, with the promise of new spells and incantations tonight.
-Falling James

LOS ANGELES TIMES MAY 2004
BUZZ BAND PICK/ L.A. band, Italy muse
Devics plays torch songs with the burners on low. The L.A. trio, anchored by vocalist Sara Lov and multi-instrumentalist Dustin O'Halloran, recorded most of last year's "The Stars at Saint Andrea" album in the northern Italian village of that name, which they visited while touring Europe. "We thought maybe we were young enough to try living somewhere else," Lov says. "The idea was just to write there, but everything [recorded in their makeshift studio] ended up sounding really
cool."
Devics' transfixing yet cathartic pop earned plaudits from various European press and, in Lov's case, comparisons to Portishead singer Beth Gibbons. The group has a headlining date Saturday at Spaceland — but still no U.S. release for "Saint Andrea," which came out on a British independent label. Meanwhile, the album's charming namesake beckons. "We're going back in
June," Lov says, "to start writing again."
- Kevin Bronson,