Many of you might know this man from Strapping Young Lad (SYL). Personally, I’ve been following him for his solo career and compositions. In this A-chord, I’ll try to cross-reference his discography with his biography, so you can have an idea of who this man is.
Devin Garret Townsend walked into the music world at the age of 19, at the hands of guitar virtuoso Steve Vai in his Sex And Religion album released in 1993. Before being found by Steve Vai, Devin played in a Vancouver metal band called Noisescapes. The first time Steve heard of Devin was when he sent him a demo track showing his vocal skills... wrapped in his underpants. Seems this little trick did a good job since the guitar virtuoso did hear it and was impressed by the young man’s vocal habilities. Soon after, the invitation came.
After recording his vocal parts and touring with Steve Vai and contributing with some guitar parts in projects like The Wildhearts, Devin Townsend formed Strapping Young Lad in 1994 and released City (an Extreme Metal album).
The Devin Townsend Band Era
It was only in 1997 that he released Ocean Machine: Biomech and started his solo career. Ocean Machine was the extreme opposite of City: experimental, ambient progressive/hard rock.
Coincidentally it was in this time that Devin was diagnosed with bipolar syndrome and was taken into the hospital.
Ironically, and after being discharged he began to work on his second album called Infinity, claiming that his new found psychological state helped him in its composition. This album was released in 1998 and was mainly Progressive Rock/Metal and was the parent project of City and Biomech.
In 2000, Physicist was released. Initially it was a project called Fizzicist, in which Devin Townsend and Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica bassist) played together.
By peer-pressure from his (at that time) fellow counterparts, Jason Newsted had to leave this project, leaving Townsend and the rest of SYL to finish this Trash Metal album. Needless to say that it was his worse album when even Devin considered it as such.
Maybe it was Physicist's negative synergies, maybe the feeling of ostracizing its fans with his 3rd album, maybe it was destiny that Devin visited his motherland Canada, maybe it was his geniality... regardless and whatever the reason behind it, in 2001 his 4th album Terria emerged as a dedication to his country and one of my favorite albums.
This is a very personal, honest and introspective album with ambient elements combined with rock and metal, in which Devin builds great harmonies, melodic atmospheres and heavy parts that altogether paint such a beautiful sounding picture.
This album also marked the beginning of one of his greatest features: his famous "Wall of Sound" effect, in which he skillfully uses multi tracks to build harmonious sounds to create his main theme from nothingness.
By 2003, Devin Townsend gets his first dedicated line-up for his solo project. In the mean time he worked in another album with SYL while recording his 5th solo album. This 5th album was a mixture of hard rock with alternative progressive rock and it was named Accelerated Evolution. Its name came from the fact that he was able to get his line-up in less than a year, while simultaneously working with SYL and his 5th album.
In 2004 Devlab is released and in 2006 The Hummer reaches the music stores. Both albums were mainly ambient albums, but are somewhat strange ones. As Devin describes The Hummer: "much more user friendly than the Devlab...still, some people are going to think it's just buzzing and humming noises, so again...it's not for everybody." The Hummer appears in a musical burn-out phase of Devin Townsend as he explains he's tired from touring and interviews. Also, by this time his first son is born.
In between these albums, Synchestra is released. It's a pop-metal album, with influences of polka, eastern European folk and Arabian music. This is a very powerful album with heavy and melodic riffage combined with loads of harmonious ambient work, again demonstrating his trademark Wall Of Sound. This was a so called "pleasant" counterpart for Strapping Young Lad's Alien, again, showing Devin's bipolarity.
As a curiosity, the song "Triumph" features the man who brought Devin to the music world, the guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, who solos in the end of the song.
As a curiosity, the song "Triumph" features the man who brought Devin to the music world, the guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, who solos in the end of the song.
Townsend described his album as a mix between Strapping Young Lad and The Devin Townsend Band, with a storyline like that of Punky Brüster's Cooked on Phonics. It is mainly a humorous concept album about an alien named Ziltoid from planet Ziltoidia 9 who's searching for the Ultimate Cup Of Coffee on Earth. Such search then results in a confrontation between the Humons (yes...Humons) and the Ziltoidians...
A very funny album indeed !
After Ziltoid, Devin goes on a "hiatus", thus ending the Devin Townsend Band Era.
The Devin Townsend Project Era
And by 2009 we enter in a new era in the career and life of Devin Garret Townsend. It is mainly a 4 album project introducing 4 different concepts, each describing different stages of his life and featuring different musicians. One important step in this era is that Devin wrote everything without being under the influence of narcotics and alcohol.
The first album, named Ki (yours truly...) is extremely sinister, with a heavy and calm environment and with a somewhat claustrophobic feeling that only "screams for help" in one song. It is an album that borrows from Terria and Synchestra, showing a stage of Devin's life where he felt depressive, angered and unhealthy after leaving Strapping Young Lad, drugs and alcohol.
It is truly a very depressing and tight album. However, it is very sober, unlike some of his older albums, with beautiful sounding melodies and environments.
His second project album named Addicted was released soon after Ki. Devin Townsend describes it as a melodic, danceable but very heavy album. It features Anneke van Giersbergen, from The Gathering, in the vocals and borrows sounds and motifs alike from Terria, Physicist and Ocean Machine. It is mainly a heavy album, with electronic influences, energetic and a somewhat pop-ish, almost commercial/mainstream feeling, yet a very pleasant and fun album to listen to.
His third album released in 2011, Deconstruction is by far his most deranged, heavy, weird, complex and strange album, presenting a massive amount of tracks ingeniously put together. It is somewhat humorous, as one track tells a story about a man who goes on a journey to find the true nature of reality. In his journey he goes to Hell and finds himself with the devil, who offers him a cheeseburger, supposedly being an "all-knowing cheeseburger"... Unfortunately the man is a vegetarian, rendering his journey pointless.
Aside from this track, and on a more personal level, this album tells of Devin's struggle with alcohol and drugs.
It features an all-star musician lineup, including: Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth, Ihsahn (ex-Emperor), Fredrik Thordendal from Meshuggah, Paul Masvidal from Cynic, Tommy Giles Rogers Jr. from Between The Buried and Me and many, many others.
And finally, we reach his most convincing ambient rock album. Ghost was released in 2011, soon after Deconstruction. It is a very quiet, very simple and powerful album. It's one of those albums that can almost sting your soul given the ambiance it creates with its great sounding melodies and harmonies.
Far from being the last we will see from Devin Townsend, this is where we will leave him, nonetheless, here ending our chronicles of the journey of a bipolar genious man who "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side".
Written by Ki
("with a little help from my friend", RRR)
Far from being the last we will see from Devin Townsend, this is where we will leave him, nonetheless, here ending our chronicles of the journey of a bipolar genious man who "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side".
Written by Ki
("with a little help from my friend", RRR)
No comments:
Post a Comment