Devin Townsend

[Eugenics]

Anyone else a fan of hevy devy?

I personally go back and forward between him and Opeth as my favorite artist. Everything he's released as a solo artist has been nothing short of amazing.

 

[foodforthegods]

I'm a huge Devin fan! I love everything he does, as musician, writer, singer or producer. This guy is a genius or mad man, depends of how you see it. Strapping Young Lad's Alien is one of those crazy album. You gotta be crazy to stop taking your medication just to make your record more real. His solo work is awesome too. Synchestra is my favorite. The Wall of sound thing is just awesome. I would love to see it work with Mike or Dan Swano.

 

[Eugenics]

Hell Yeah! Everyone talks about how consisted Opeth has been with releases, but Devin Townsend deserves that kind of acknowledgement aswell. From Ocean Machine to Ziltoid, Devin has always delivered groundbreaking albums.

Alien is such a beautifully disgusting angry album. I would put Shitstorm against anything in extreme metal. It is just unreal. The production on it hits so hard.

Synchestra is also my favorite. I consider it one of the best albums I've ever heard. It's a dreamscape of beautifully blended vocal layers, ambient sounds, and varied instruments. I've had it since May 06 and I still find myself picking out new things I never noticed before.


If Devin ever produced an Opeth album or worked with Akerfeldt on a project, I would die happy. I am geeked enough on the fact that they are pretty good friends with a unique bond. A collaboration with my 2 musical heroes would be amazing!

 

[antipunx13]

I've only bought Ziltoid and Synchestra and I can understand why he gets so much praise, those albums are awesome. Ziltoid especially...perfect mix of an entertaining concept and good music.

 

[Kudzu]

For me it's Ocean Machine, Infinity and Terria. The rest start to sound a bit the same.

 

[Arjen W.]

I started listening to Devin some time ago, Terria to be exact. It took a few listens, but this record is so good. I only heard that one and Ziltoid so far, which is also a very good (and funny) record. I have yet to check out his other albums and projects (only heard a few SYL songs, pretty awesome too), but I'm sure I will.

 

[FUBAR]

Anyone else a fan of hevy devy?

I personally go back and forward between him and Opeth as my favorite artist. Everything he's released as a solo artist has been nothing short of amazing.

Same with me. Dev makes music with such feeeling, love everything he does.

His 72 minute symphonic album should be realesed soon, hopefully.

 

[el_serpiente]

Oh yes, He is an genius. I especially like City. This in my opinion the most angry album ever made. I also enjoyed Ziltoid a lot.

If you don't know it Punky Brüster hilarious.

 

[Don Corleone]

accelerated evolution is highly underrated. and i never understand why

 

[Alex78]

my favourite artist since 1997!!

I would rank the albums as follows:

1. Ocean Machine
2. Accelerated Evolution
3. Synchestra
4. Terria
5. Infinity
6. Ziltoid
7. Physicist

I love all of them though.

 

[beast from the east]

This guy is a genius or mad man, depends of how you see it.

He's BOTH!!! That's what makes his art so cool...

I love all the SYL and DT(B) albums, but Ocean Machine is just heavenly Terria and AE are up there as well. As for SYL, City and Alien are both killer.

 

[annt]

A great musician, I like lots of his stuff... but sometimes I feel he's being slightly overrated. I'm not a huge fan of his production style and he seems to be recycling the same chord progressions quite a bit in his songs. But nevertheless one of the great metal masterminds (wow, that sounds corny).

 

[Kudzu]

^Agree 100%. Great musician, but far too repetitive nowadays

 

[wankerness]

Ocean Machine, Synchestra and Infinity are amazing, most of his other non-SYL stuff is kind of bland and repetitive more frequently than not. Accelerated Evolution and Terria both have a few just totally amazing songs (Earth Day, Deadhead, Storm) but I can never stop myself from skipping like half the album out of boredom. Physicist is pretty bad. Ziltoid is ok but the concept is offensively retarded and screams of "I didn't feel like writing actual lyrics once I had the songs done," not to mention the second half gets VERY boring.

In conclusion, he's a cool guy, just should work on some of his albums a lot longer than he does.

 

[BloodSword]

"Ocean Machine" is in that "rarified air" stratosphere. One of my all-time top 5 albums ever.

 

[Alex78]

agreed. and I doubt he'll ever top that album

 

[Eugenics]

Ocean Machine has to be one of the most complete and best debut albums by any artist. It is just too perfect to be a debut album.

Considering how I started with Synchestra and Terria first, I found myself wanting more smooth harmonic singing on Ocean Machine. It focuses much more on the raspy singing, which is cool too dont get me wrong.

1.Synchestra- Has such a nice seemless flow and it ventures many different styles with great subtlety

2.Ocean Machine- One cool thing to do in a car full of stoners is to say "think waterfall" before the vocal harmonies at the beginning of Night start. Feels like water goes through. Dont do drugs kids.

3. Accelerated Evolution- Has the most straight forward approach, and trancends soul and emotion better than all the others. Powerful songs on here.

4. Terria- Huge album. Fuckin huge. The multi layer vocals in Canada may be one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.

5. Infinity- Strangest album ever. One song is 90s rock, the next is 40s swing music, while one is a waltz song, and another has a discordant 70's porno music thing going. Fuckin amazing album. The Wall of Sound is huge on this album.

6. Ziltoid- Few artists can release albums with lyrics and concepts like this while still maintaining high status. How would this have gone if Opeth did it?

7. I honestly never listened to it. I need to. I doubt it sucks or anything.

 

[Khayman666]

accelerated evolution is highly underrated. and i never understand why

Agreed. It's absolutely brilliant and doesn't get the praise and attention it deserves.

Still can't understand how more people don't know about Devin though. City and Alien should be mandatory listening for anyone even remotely interested in metal! I've met so many people who'd never heard of Devin or SYL. Cranked Oh My Fucking God each time and watched them piss themselves. Works every time.

 

[soundave]

Not super qualified to comment as I only have Syncestra, Ocean Machine, Ziltoid, and The New Black. I heard City around when it came out, but I was not really ready for SYL at that point in my life. I didn't get it. Weird to think back on that now.

Anyhow, his general wackiness combined with his musical talent and his prolificness makes me think of Frank Zappa a bit.

On Comcast Digital OnDemand, in Music>Guitar Lessons>Guitar World Demos there's a Hevy Devy demo of his guitar rig. He's pretty silly in it, and he shreds a bit (about which he exclaims at the end, "Yeah! Lame!"). I didn't realize until I watched this that the tuning he uses, and apparently has used since he was 10 is open C. C-G-C-G-C-E. As he puts it, like in "Friends" off of Zep III.

Anyhow, I like what I've heard thus far. I'm just waiting for the actual Ziltoid puppet show to happen. Metal Muppets. Bring it on.

 

[FUBAR]

Anyhow, I like what I've heard thus far. I'm just waiting for the actual Ziltoid puppet show to happen. Metal Muppets. Bring it on.

Don't think it will happen. Dev gets bored easily, pretty sure hes done with Ziltoid. Although he did do a few short mini ziltoid transmissions, they are on the 2 disc edition.