Artist Showcase: Devin Townsend, Part 2

So, in the last part of this artist showcase, we began with the really early releases of varying quality, but it was in 1997 that Devin began the endless flow of amazing albums that persists to this day. It all began with...

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD - CITY

It was after the release of Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing that Devin began getting offers to tour, which obviously required a few other people to perform in the band, because performing live as a one-man project is hard, y'know?

Take it from Varg, it's best to not even bother.

After the touring, the lineup that Devin had brought together somehow stuck, and it ended up being the permanent lineup for Strapping Young Lad. This lineup included Jed Simon returning on guitar (naturally), Byron Stroud, formerly of a little-known band named Caustic Thought, on bass duty, and Gene Hoglan, previously playing for Death and Death Angel, on drums. 

 AKA The Human Drum Machine. C'mon, try to tell me that that's all natural fat after years of playing some of the best and most technical metal drumming ever.

With City, SYL took the industrial influence from HaaRHT and went all out with it, even going as far as to cover a Cop Shoot Cop song, while still maintaining the signature GLORIOUS EARRAPE sound that they were becoming known for. City was released on February 11th, 1997, and to this day has a reputation as one of the best industrial metal albums ever. It was SYL's most industrial release, while also being their most thrashy. It would also be arguably their most popular release, due in part to the music video produced for Detox, and many songs from it becoming concert staples. To this day, you'd be hard-pressed to find any extreme metal album rivaling the sheer chaos and extremity of City.

The beat starts here.

Never has there been a song title that so accurately reflected the listener's response.

After releasing such a magnificent slab of ear-bleeding madness, one'd probably be left wondering "Where do they go from here? How could Devin possibly top himself now?" 

Well...

OCEAN MACHINE - BIOMECH

  

This album is where the Great Divide between Strapping Young Lad fans and Devin Townsend fans began. Ocean Machine was a short-lived project, much like Punky Bruster, that made one album and promptly vanished. Fronted by Devin, as per the norm, Ocean Machine had JR Harder (from the aforementioned Punky Bruster) on bass and Marty Chapman (who seems to have dropped off the face of the music industry after this album) on drums. While nowhere near as brutal or technical as Strapping Young Lad, Devin maintained the attention to detail, utilizing the Wall of Sound technique in an entirely different manner. Some of Devin's best songwriting throughout his career can be seen on this album, with the music forming a loose concept of life, death, and someplace in between. Some songs are upbeat and almost poppy (how Life never became a #1 Single still escapes me), while others are moodier and more epic in scope (the ending trifecta of songs, but more on that in a moment). Some of the songs lead into each other, and some have intro tracks of their own to segue between the last track and the next. Near the end of the album, it hits you. The Holy Trinity of Ocean Machine: Funeral, Bastard, and The Death Of Music. Each of these three tracks is around ten minutes in length, and each flows into the next, creating a trilogy of sorts. 

Funeral starts things off in an upbeat-ish manner. While not quite as upbeat as Life, Funeral maintains the enchanting, almost dream-like quality of the album. That track alone is a musical journey, but the trilogy still has two songs to go. Next up comes Bastard, a track separated into two parts, according to the booklet. The first half revolves around a riff much darker than that of its predecessor, evoking the atmosphere of a rainy night in the city. The second half almost seems like a light at the end of a tunnel, and just when things start to really get going, it fades into The Death of Music, a 12 minute ambient opus, driven almost entirely by a basic computerized beat, various samples, and Devin's vocals. Devin's vocal performance on this track needs to be heard to be believed, showcasing all of his abilities and creating the most emotionally-resonant track on the album. Although it sounds repetitive from this description, the song is just so all-encompassing that one is drawn into its atmosphere, transferring itself to the listener by its end. 

After The Death Of Music ends, an (originally) hidden track, Things Beyond Things begins to close off the album. Things Beyond Things is a simple song, written around a basic set of chords and Devin's vocals. It's a great way to close off the experience that is Ocean Machine - Biomech, ending the album with a peaceful rumination on the events of the album, ending with the statement that "these things inside are all just things". The journey is at an end, and all is well... or is it?

Ocean Machine is one of the greatest non-70s-prog-style Prog Rock albums ever released in my humble opinion. This is just one of those albums that words don't do justice to at all, and needs to be experienced in full to realize the magnitude of it all. 

And so we cover another small, but VERY important chunk of Devin Townsend's discography. As is apparent, Devin's road to musical greatness truly kicks off at this point in his career, setting the stage for DOZENS OF ALBUMS, EACH MORE GLORIOUS THAN THE LAST AHHHHHH

Artist Showcase: Devin Townsend, Part 1

Devin Townsend. Where do I begin? This is a musician who's been all over the place throughout his increasingly-large discography, and no matter which genre of music he attempts next, he performs it with the same perfectionist quality and attention-to-detail that'd be expected of the masters of the genre. So, let's start from the very beginning.

NOTE: Even though Devin Townsend has had many guest appearances and helped out with other albums in small ways, this Artist Showcase will focus only on the ones that the Dev had a major role in, and will be listed in chronological order. Sorry, no love for Front Line Assembly in this post!

STEVE VAI - SEX & RELIGION

So, when Devin first began his initial foray into the music industry, he was but a strapping young lad (I MADE A FUNNEH) of the tender age of 21.

He was awfully ambitious for his age.

 Devin performed all of the lead vocals on the album, and does an astonishingly good job at it as well, with his work on this album being home to some of the highest notes on his recorded vocal range to date. On some songs, like Touching Tongues, he showcases a bit of Freddy Mercury influence, and on others, he embarks on a style wholly his own. Though not flawless, Devin's vocal delivery on this album is stellar, and a promising hint on the rest of his vocal work to come.

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD - HEAVY AS A REALLY HEAVY THING

Disillusioned by his experiences with the music industry when he was with Vai, and his constant rejection from various record labels during his short-lived stint as the guitarist for a British hard rock group known as The Wildhearts, Devin decided to turn his anger into a productive outlet, and formed an extreme metal project named Strapping Young Lad. Heavily inspired by extreme and industrial metal (more specifically, Fear Factory's debut cut Soul Of A New Machine, which blended industrial and death metal), Devin set out to record this album, not for any perks for himself, but solely as an elaborate joke at the expense of the music industry, one of the album's prime targets lyrically. Although the album was the product of sheer angst and anger, it never took itself too seriously, beginning a trend of subtle (and not-so-subtle) self-referential humour that would persist throughout the project, and even through Devin's solo material. The album was mostly a solo effort, but was performed with the aid of Adrian White of Front Line Assembly on drums, and Jed Simon on backing guitars. Jed Simon would remain a part of Strapping Young Lad throughout the project's lifespan. 

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL EVER SEE

This album also marked the beginning of Devin's trademark wall of sound production, inspired by Frank Zappa, but with his own over-the-top flair to it, and with an almost perfectionist quality to it. Each background noise, every frequency had its own special place within the song structure, a trait which would carry through even today. The album lives up to its name, as the songs are unceasingly brutal, aside from a few entirely tongue-in-cheek sections, such as the bonus track, which at first glance seems to be too happy for its own good... One problem with the album, however, is that it was very much an album to be taken as a whole, focusing on the general intensity and sentiment of the album as a whole, rather than individual songs, although the album did have a few hits. Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing is one of the more underrated releases in Devin's catalogue, some would argue rightfully so, including Devin himself, but the sentiment remains as relevant as ever, especially in today's world of cookie-cutter pop artists and exploitation. 

PUNKY BRUSTER - COOKED ON PHONICS

With a band name and album title like that, you can tell that this is going to be the darkest Devin Townsend work yet.

Punky Brüster was a one-off project helmed by Devin and brought to fruition with the help of Adrian White, fresh off of his previous work on HaaRHT, and John Harder on bass. Continuing the trend of jokes at the expense of the music industry, Cooked on Phonics tells the tale of the death metal band Cryptic Coroner, from South-Central Poland, who decide to sell out and become a punk band. The entire album was a jab at sell-outs, the very nature of selling out, and the general absurdity of the music industry. The music was played in a typical, almost parody-ish punk style, with the story being told through the lyrics, and occasionally through a narrator. Much like Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing, the album was much more about the general concept rather than the individual songs. Punky Brüster is another oft-overlooked entry into the Devin Townsend discography.

Welp, that wraps it up for this first entry in the Devin Townsend Artist Showcase. The next part will kick off with the section of Devin's catalogue where the real gems start showing up. Good times!