Devin Townsend: the story behind the man

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.

At this stage, all of his albums were released under his name (Devin claimed all of them were part of his personality) and members from Strapping Young Lad were playing in both bands: SYL and Devin Townsend Band.

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.

Finally, we arrive to the album presenting the omniverse of Ziltoid: The Omniniscient. Released in 2007 it marks the first time Devin Townsend composed, recorded, mixed and produced an whole album by himself, as he wanted to prove he did not need help from anyone else. 
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)

Riverside @ Hard Club, Porto – 8th October 2011

A "Polished" Performance 


Just a day after their debut in Lisbon (or, as Mariusz Duda so politely put it, “Seville”), the quartet from Poland is once again stepping onstage, this time in Porto, roughly four years after a quick stint, then opening for Dream Theater in their Chaos in Motion Tour, back in 2007.

Things don’t start well for the Warsaw rockers, and as the clock hits 9:00 PM, there’s only about 40 people in the room… Strangely enough, nothing happens. Nor does anything happen for the 30 plus minutes that follow.

No sign from the band (or from the audience, for that matter), till all of a sudden the room fills in the blink of an eye and the corny power metal that’s been blasting away through the PA system for the past hour and a half finally subsides.

Familiar chords fill the air as the band finally finds their way onto the stage of this still half-filled room.

The fact that guitar man Piotr Grudziński climbs onstage with an APC t-shirt (that and the sheer number of Tool tees in the audience) could actually mislead you, but as the chords of “After” finally strike, you know you’re in Riverside land now.

Musically, from the first bass note to the last synth chord, these guys rock, there’s no two ways about it. The music flows flawlessly and we can feel the chemistry between the band members as the compositions evolve into what is quickly becoming a very complex musical portfolio.

Ever since “Out of Myself”, you can see, hear and, most of all, feel the complexity rising. Riffs become more elaborate, time signatures more demanding. But unlike so many other bands who, as time goes by, become more and more like someone else’s clone, Riverside have managed to keep their sound, as a whole, pretty much intact.

But if, on the one hand their music still keeps getting better and better, on stage they seem to be becoming the epitome of the consummate professional artist: in and out in about two hours, give’em enough to want more, not too much so as not to bore them, don’t play the obvious ones everybody wants to hear, appease the gods of prog by turning one of your anthems (“Second Life Syndrome”) into some kind of hybrid pseudo-medley that cuts throughout one the most iconic moments of the “Reality Dream Trilogy” (namingly, “Parasomnia”), and, above all, push out those encores like today’s specials. I mean it. And quite personally, this is actually what bugs me the most. But we’ll get to that in a sec.

If we forget for a moment that the setlist for this concert is exactly the same one played the night before (and, for that matter, the same one that’s been featuring in all gigs of their 10th Anniversary Tour), there still seems to be an aura of “lost in translation-ness” between the band and the audience. Sure, these guys are a product of too many years behind the Iron Curtain, but surely things have gotten much better since.

The concert has, here and there, strange (more like awkward) moments, where the band attempts to communicate with the audience, but all efforts seem to result in bafflement, above all.

For example, somewhere in the middle of “O2 Panic Room”, at the brake before the last chorus, the band stops playing altogether. The audience remains silent, waiting for something to happen as the band members, now looking downward, motionless and sphinx-like, start smiling, perhaps at some private joke we just missed. Seconds go by and nothing happens, until Mariusz starts gesturing for us to get loud. Ooooh! We finally get it! So we’re supposed to… and you guys are gonna… oh! I see… Hmmm, clever!… No, not really.

 After some more seconds of… well, getting loud, the band returns to the “Sweet shelter of mine”, and we’re left feeling we’ve just taken part in a Happening. It could work, but it just feels forced, contrived.

In a sense, just as contrived as the “self-portraits they tried to paint before”, which for some reason don’t make it onstage, and the song is severely cut short of its last, crucial section. Shame on them!

All in all, the concert is competent, musically and attitude-wise, but that’s about it. The band seems to be strangely detached from the heart and especially the soul they put into their albums. Perhaps they’re just an uptight, introverted bunch that has a tough time loosening up.

Be it as it may, they could use a bit more soul in their stints in front of an audience. Ten years, four albums and a couple of EPs after, they’re hardly rookies anymore. Soulful as their music might be, it is important to be able to convey the feeling to an audience, not just through the music recorded in an album, but through the living, breathing band members themselves.

And we reach the encore bit…

Personally, I’ve always felt that an encore is a bit like the delicate art of tipping: underdo it, and there’s no motivation to go beyond the mere obligation; overdo it, an there’s simply no way to tell the difference between “good”, “OK”, “excellent” and everything in between with sugar on top.

Sure enough, nowadays the encore cult has almost disappeared, and bands deliberately leave their biggest hits for the encore, regardless of how the gig might go and what the atmosphere might be like. But quite frankly, to have the band leave the stage only for the “roadie master” to rout the audience into a noisy frenzy, like we’re getting ready to invade some small country, is too much for me. The encore is either natural or there is none. But to come onstage with two encores already planned, waiting to happen, regardless of what happens during the show; to have someone actually make us clap loud enough for an encore (or two) to take place somehow seems cheap and unnecessary.

That’s not the way, guys, surely it isn’t. If it’s good, we’ll still leave wanting more, no need to force what can and should be natural and pure.

All in all, a good show, but only that: “good”.

Finally, just a quick word regarding the individual performance of the band members.

It’s widely known that Duda is the soul of the band, especially in regard to the lyrics (as he writes all of them), and being the front man as well, most of the attention naturally falls on him. But I have to be honest, I could not veer my eyes away from guitarist Piotr Grudziński.

The pure simplicity with which Mr. Grudziński plays brings about everything that’s beautiful in music.

Sure, it’s prog; sure, sometimes it’s heavy; sure, sometimes things get really complicated, with 6 by 4 and the upper diminished fourth elevated to the power of the riff. But he’s not in a competition (like soooo many other guitarists of our time) to spit out as many licks as he can per second, nor is he trying to unlock the secret, über-difficult hidden level in Guitar Hero. He’s simply playing out of love, and we get it.

It doesn’t come as a surprise, then, when we find out who his four major influences are: John Petrucci (Dream Theater), Daniel Gildenlöw (Pain of Salvation), Danny Cavanagh (Anathema) and, of course, the Heavy Devy himself, Mr. Devin Townsend. But the picture gets even clearer when he reveals who his true guitar hero really is: David Gilmour.

Throughout the concert (and the albums, as well), the similarities in style between both are unavoidable. And even if a comparison is right out of order (which it is!), it is undeniable that both play from the heart, and that shows.

Let’s be honest, these guys can all play, and play they do.

But beyond the drumming skills of Piotr Kozieradzki (“human metronome”, as our very own Ki so eloquently puts it), the amazing technique and melodic construction of keyboardist Michał Łapaj, and the virtuousness of Duda’s bass playing style, it’s Grudziński’s guitar that stands out, even more so live, and if Duda’s lyrics are the soul of Riverside, Piotr’s crying guitar is clearly the heart.

Setlist:

    After

    Artificial Smile

    Hyperactive

    Living in the Past

    Ultimate Trip

    Conceiving You

    Egoist Hedonist

    Left Out

    02 Panic Room

    Second Life Syndrome

    (the first half, at least, with a short section from “Parasomnia”)

Encore #1

    Forgotten Land

    Reality Dream

Encore #2

    The Curtain Falls

Riverside @ Santiago Alquimista - 07/10/2011

It started as a Riverside + Guests show, but ended up with just Riverside, due to a long setlist the band had prepared for its fans. In fact, the 2 hour long show (including two encores) was part of their 10th anniversary tour, so the public (or, at least, personally) was expecting something special from the polish progressive rock artists.

The setlist consisted of songs from their EP, Memories In My Head, and from their older albums like Out Of Myself (2003), Second Life Syndrome (2005), Rapid Eye Movement (2007) and Anno Domini High Definition (2009). So, as you readers can guess, Santiago Alquimista entered in some sort of “random time machine” and visited all the albums from the band in a couple of hours.

Songs like Conceiving You, Loose Heart, 02 Panic Room, Second Life Syndrome (with a good medley/improve from the band) and Living In The Past all came to life in this 14 songs long list (setlist at the end of this text). The songs were all very well played and, in fact, the band was very proficient that night. They interacted well with the audience, which, in return, answered the call by either singing choruses (like Conceiving You) or by singing guitar parts (like Left Out). 

Mariusz Duda (bass player/vocals) played and sang really great and even brought a bit of comedy to the show: besides wearing an Angry Birds’ t-shirt, he goofed a bit with the audience. 
Piotr Kozieradzki was a beast at the percussion section and was a splendid human metronome for the band. 
Michał Łapaj (keyboards) and Piotr Grudziński (guitar) both played beautifully, with great sounding melodies and spot on execution of their instruments. Actually, the keyboard player had time to drink his coffee during the intro of Left Out while the rest of the band played (which can be kind of ironic, given the song’s title).

The only downside to this show was, maybe, a lack of soul from the band. Although they played really good and beautifully, with complex passages played smoothly and good interaction from the audience, personally, they could have showed a bit more soul during the show. But nonetheless and, overall, it was a good concert.

Setlist

After

Artificial Smile

Hyperactive

Living in the Past

Ultimate Trip

Conceiving You

Egoist Hedonist

Left Out

Loose Heart

02 Panic Room

Second Life Syndrome

—-

Encore:

Forgotten Land

Reality Dream III

—-

Encore 2:

The Curtain Falls