While Netflix's Jaskier's songs are phenomenal.
The real-world troubadour behind the lute, though, is even more talented; English actor and musician Joey Batey has been a performer since childhood, and has an incredible list of British film and TV projects as well as a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company to his name. Yet the project of Batey's that serves as a wonderfully dark reflection of his bardic alter-ego is his band, The Amazing Devil.
The Amazing Devil Will Bewitch And Beguile You
With their first single "King" in 2016, The Amazing Devil burst onto the folk-rock scene with a sound that is a little baroque, a little burlesque, and exploding with artistic fury. Since then, their releases have only become more polished, and their three studio albums so far — Love Run, The Horror and the Wild, and ruin — are packed full of dense, artful lyrics, as well as instrumentation that ranges from simple acoustic guitar to a full coven of folk instruments.
The Amazing Devil Aren’t Just A Reprise Of Jaskier's Songs
While Batey’s sound is a key part of The Witcher's pseudo-medieval aesthetic, he’s only half of what makes The Amazing Devil great. The other is Madeleine Hyland, who provided the band's origin story in an interview with Notre Dame's With a Side of Knowledge. The duo met in 2013 when they were both cast in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Wolf Hall duology, which ran for two years, first moving to the West End and then Broadway. Over those years, Batey and Hyland spent enough time playing music together that upon their return to London they immediately recorded their first album.
Sadly, Batey's shooting schedule for The Witcher franchise has only gotten more demanding.
The theatrical origins of The Amazing Devil are beautifully obvious, especially their live performances, where both Hyland and Batey transform into musical psychopomps, infusing the music with every drop of their inner darkness and joy. Sadly, Batey's shooting schedule for The Witcher franchise has only gotten more demanding, with the bard appearing not only in the main series but also the prequel Blood Origin and the Sirens of the Deep, so 2021's ruin remains The Amazing Devil's most recent outing. Hopefully, they’ll return to the studio as soon as Batey returns from his latest misadventures on the Continent.
(Source: With a Side of Knowledge)
