I have liked Devin Townsend for a while, but I definitely am not as blown away as a lot of people seem to be. Ocean Machine always gets praised as some mammoth monster of an album that's one of the best ever recorded...I'd agree that about half of it is just completely killer, especially NIGHT which is my second favorite song by him and Bastard, but 'the death of music' just sucks and deflates it.
Infinity is mostly awesome but has some pretty dreary tracks in the middle, I was absolutely shocked when I heard "ants" off that and it sounded like goddam Spiral Architect, cause there's almost no technicality to speak of in any of the other pre-synchestra devin albums (and I hadn't heard SYL at the time so I didn't know he was capable of playing anything complex at all!). It was my favorite album of his until I heard Synchestra.
Physicist was sort of lame...I like some of it (like Planet Rain) but the rockers are sort of stale and do feel like a lame version of SYL (it's almost as bad as the SYL self-titled
).
Terria is one of the most overrated albums ever, to my ears. I see it getting praise EVERYWHERE but I've just never enjoyed it, it feels really boring to me throughout. I don't like the 'earthy' guitar tone/playing even though I'm sure it was intentional. It's just a boring album imo.
Accelerated Evolution had some brilliant songs on it (especially Deadhead) and then a bunch of boring stuff at the end...never a big fan but I liked it more than Terria/Physicist.
Synchestra is just awesome, it's like a progged-up version of Infinity. I just love it, especially Triumph (love that Steve Vai solo!), Babysong (this is seriously one of my favorite songs ever already, the bizarre lullabye feel to it at parts and the hilarious bouncy kid music keyboards that come in over the rocking riffs and the way the arpeggios get diminished and make the song sound menacing are all just genius), and Sunset (this is probably the best thing he's ever done, I'm so angry that it's only like 3 minutes long
). Much of the rest of it is great too, like Vampira and Gaia. Just great. I'm going to buy it if I can ever find the version with the DVD again
. At first you feel as though it is any straightforward metal/rock album, but it is really damn unique once you understand it. The cd just oozes with emotion imo. I feel as though the song structures, although being more straightforward, still present exactly what makes his music so special. Songs like Sunday Afternoon, Slow Me Down, and Storm all showcase the emotions I am talking about. This album is very emotional. If you dont like it, it definitely is a grower. Even moreso than Physicist. You really do get conflicting messages over the album, but it is very accessible. I definitely think that any pop fan would love Sunday Afternoon, although it may be a little heavy.
