Andrew Danso

It’s a prodigy, droves flocked in over two hundred people, went to cheer on the Devin Townsend Project, who are wrapped in the kind of zaniness, charisma and gimmick which Mark Zuckerberg could never get away with. This show wasn’t about the fifty nerds at the front, waving Ziltoid dolls in the air, this was a carefully plotted metal show, with less of the baldy middle-aged bloke behind “Ghost”, and more of the angry boy in front of “Deconstruction”.

A common theme spanning through, in particular, Irish folk gigs is the idea of playing something airy and ambient through the PA before the lights go up, to not only set a kind of laid back mood in the room, but to emphasise the effect of jiving when it eventually gets going. Townsend implores a similar psychology, except while the roadies are setting up, a ‘radio’ ‘Ziltoid 5.3’ gets going, playing stuff like Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and Beyonce. Not only did it work in getting the crowd full of laughter in anticlimax, but it also served to misdirect them, so that when he eventually chugged into “ZTO”, it looked like their face had hit the wall.

It’s hard not to notice a lot of his older productions sounding enhanced live, and it’s a worthy cosmetic touch. Reproducing “Seventh Wave”, “Deep Peace” and “Bad Devil” they had much greater guile live, than their usual habitat on CD. Two tracks ripped from Deconstruction were played, “Stand” and “Juular” which served to pulverise the crowd, and the double encore finish got quite a few laughs in its irony – he twice told the audience to ‘shut up’ while playing through “Heaven Send” off “Ki”, which got this snotty nosed critic teetering, and completely on his side.

8/10 Powerplay #139

This was just a bit of note taking I did before I planned to review the said albums. Since then, I've never got my finger out and put together a working piece.

This is entirely meant to be subjective - from my own point of view – and since that’s no different from pulling a search off a fanzine, at the very least, I can say that you have been warned.










So, how best to define DTP without the press release? What does it mean to me?

Essentially what the Devin Townsend Project is, is a cathartic release in the form of music to the aftermath of drug addiction and an emotional reaction to a long-term band break up.

In many ways the concept is its limitation, yet Townsend claims a fervent freedom in the yin and yang of the projects idea; the limitations I’m thinking off, are when something heard is more like the old, instead of the new (the entirety of Addicted! as an example).

• Its size, passion, intention, ideas, complexion. Most of all, because of its honesty it’s an extremely brave record.
  

• Its powerful beginning and ending (tracks: Praise The Lowered & Poltergeist).

• I feel that Deconstruction wants to display a thwarted stream of consciousness (e.g. an awareness of being a little angry and thinking about it) through the form of metal, but unfortunately I think it’s closer to proving how limited the genre can be, in its failure to do so.

• For sake of genre bashing, I think the album has more in common with power metal, than it does progressive, death metal, etc. It wants to be heavy in its zillion progressions, but with so much going on, it's flimsy than weighty.
  

• Its misdirection. If every action has an opposite reaction, then it’s OK to laugh at the silliness dotted throughout the album. Despite the records best attempts at taking itself seriously, the humour (or intended mania) doesn’t stick. Deconstruction proves the opposite; many of his fans are finding the album hilarious, when it's meant to be plugging a sense of derangement.

Ghost is a cathartic lullaby to tune out the four album concept. I find the ideas here much more rich and complex than that of Deconstruction, and better yet, I think Ghost & Ki prove that Townsend is better in doing something neurotic than all out metal. He’s much better writing with his age in mind, than something he would build upon twenty years ago. He’s great to listen too when there’s a straight-jacket applied.

I feel that Ki & Ghost (specifically in that order) are his greatest achievements.

New personnel with a different focus in its crosshairs; this encapsulates the ‘Devin Townsend Project’ with only two records in. It’s an obvious ploy made by Townsend, to not least further his career but to keep us (and himself) guessing on the eventual output. Ki was a success. It spanned of everything deep within the Townsend vein and some. Following on from Ki was sure to be deflating. Branded a collectively ‘more fun and straight to the point’ record, Addicted! is infinitely that PR line and less.

If warning shots were fired by Townsend, prior to the eventual criticism of Addicted! then we’ve taken two the chest. He’s dead right, Addicted! has no where near the same care or depth associated with Ki. You’ll be dosing on disco and pop, fused with his typical industrial metal (think a minor SYL) or you’ll be listening to incredibly straight to the point, heavy, metal. However, everything presented is expectantly polished. The ‘to the point’ material is very effective, that even outdoes a lot of his better productions under SYL. The pop or disco implementation is unpalatable, and so are the shoddy but necessary choruses. Interestingly there are about five core tracks the album manoeuvres around, (which are very much accomplished) with the commercial beef intertwining between.

Of the four ‘Devin Townsend Projects’ (four announced, two complete) it doesn’t take half a brain cell to know that Addicted! will be on the bottom of Townsend’s barrel (mine too), when it comes to rating the albums one by one. That’s not to say this is a bad record (in fact it’s the very opposite), but suffers considerably from the negative clichés that greatness indirectly spawns. What next though, for Townsend - we can’t wait.

7.5/10 Metal-Mayhem.co.uk