DEVILOOF promise “heavier, faster, stranger” as they sign to Universal’s Virgin Music

DEVILOOF have made their major-label switch and signed with Universal Music Japan, moving to the company’s Virgin Music label from Tokuma Japan Communications. The Osaka deathcore band announced the move on September 1st alongside news of their digital single, ‘Gamurou’, due October 7th.

‘Gamurou’ will be DEVILOOF’s first new track since ‘INSHU’ arrived through Tokuma in January 2025. Universal says details of the track will follow shortly.

DEVILOOF, who in 2023 made their major-label debut through Tokuma with EP ‘DAMNED’, have been setting themselves up as the global standard-bearers for Japanese deathcore, with Universal saying the partnership will support the band’s further development in Japan and overseas.

Bassist Daiki said DEVILOOF would carry the Japanese deathcore banner and “take on the world”, thanking Tokuma for taking them to the majors in the first place. Guitarist Ray said the band had no intention of destroying what they had made so far, only of surpassing it and becoming “heavier, faster, stranger”. Vocalist Keisuke promised “bigger places, a bigger sound, and a bigger nuisance”, while drummer Nao, who joined in January, said the band would draw Japan, and ultimately the world, in with an “overwhelming sound representing JAPANESE DEATHCORE”.

The band have been on a course correction, as Keisuke described, since the release of ‘INSHU’. He explained that DEVILOOF had deliberately toned down some of the sinister character of their earlier material for the 2023 major debut in an attempt to reach a wider heavy-music audience. When that failed to land as he had hoped, ‘INSHU’ returned to the band’s older brutality while pushing the technical side further.

Actor Tadanobu Asano, a self-declared fan, appeared in the ‘INSHU’ video, and it was that video that prompted THE ALFEE’s Toshihiko Takamizawa to invite Keisuke to supply death vocals on ‘Teinei Kotoba Death!’. The collaboration later took Keisuke onto the Osaka-jo Hall stage with THE ALFEE on December 29th, 2025, the final night of their winter tour. DEVILOOF reached Europe the same year, with a main-stage slot at Spain’s Resurrection Fest and their first European headline tour, THE UNHOLY, which included their London debut.

‘Gamurou’ arrives on October 7th, the same night DEVILOOF open for US deathcore group Lorna Shore at Toyosu PIT. DEVILOOF will then celebrate the single and the Universal deal with a one-man show, ‘Gokuraku’, at Shibuya Stream Hall on December 12th. They first announced the date in April as their 11th-anniversary concert and have since folded it into the ‘Gamurou’ release.