Devin Townsend - Transcendence Review

Its with delight that every time I hear a news story about Devin Townsend I know hes about to release a new album or announce a tour, and more recently a DVD live concert. To date he has never disappointed so it was with great sadness to report that his new album Transcendence fails to delight and has become just another "business as usual" release.

One of the things I love most about Devin is that every album has been unique and represents a part of his personality and musical tastes at the time of writing, and knowing the way he writes (i.e. alone and all from within) makes every song special.

Devin has played with musical styles and even formats, such as working as a band and as a solo artist, yet somehow his latest album perhaps marks the end of his original material. For starters this is the first band written album he has been involved with, unless you include Vai's Sex and Religion which he ironically hated as a recording and touring experience. By that he came up with riffs and melodies, and the rest of the band worked with him on the composing making it a band effort rather than a Devin effort.

For this original and fresh musician to open the album with a new version of an old song oddly sets the tone for the album, instead of new exciting band orientated songs, we get Truth, the opening track from Ocean Machine: Biomech. The rest of the songs rarely improve upon this song.



If youve never heard Devin then this is a great entry album, for everyone else it wont hold any surprises.

4/10

Devin Townsend Again & Metroid Metal

I was again listening to Devin Townsend's Biomech album and still finding it fresh and full of energy.

I also tried a new band who should have been right up my street. I enjoy movie soundtracks, and especially game soundtracks. I heard of a band called The Black Mages who are a Japanese rock band who play Final Fantasy music in the style of power/progressive rock metal. They have released three albums and a live DVD/CD which I have as well. I enjoy the soundtrack to the Metroid Prime games on the GameCube/Nintendo Wii and have both on CD as well. Metroid Metal is the name of the band, and they play heavy metal versions of Metroid game soundtracks. I got their third album and began to listen to it. I was disappointed for several reasons.

(a) I know the original music very well, and the tracks they covered on this album I could not recognise.
(b) There was none of the energy and beautiful etherealism that was in the music that was present in the game soundtrack, i.e. the cover versions added nothing to the music at all.

If I stumbled across their first two albums I may accidentally buy them, but I wont be expecting much.

Devin Townsend

I spent a few hours on Saturday and Sunday listening to some of the early music by Devin Townsend. Its amazing to see how progressive he was, but equally to see how little he has evolved as a musician during his musical career.

Yes he has different "modes" black metal, progressive/industrial rock, ambient/down tempo and even recently "country rock" (although I'd debate that its country), but he manages to delight me still with producing complex and layered walls of sound and vocal that has yet to be equalled. He is one of the few musicians for whom I hope he continues writing the same style of music.

My first introduction to him was as the vocalist on Steve Vai's VAI album. I remember being totally struck by his vocal range that went from screams and howls to heights that he reminded me of Cher. I never heard of his music after that, until I stumbled across Napster and saw his name again. The album was Physicist and whilst its considered to be his weakest album, it was enough to make me want to follow his music and enjoy each of his releases.