The Devin Townsend Band – Synchestra

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InsideOut Music
Produced by Devin Townsend

Devin Townsend is one of those musicians I’ve always had a huge respect for, but have never found that I actually like any of his records. Much like Neal Morse. The talent is clearly there, and I want to like him, but the way it’s used is questionable. However, this time, Devin’s made an album that steers clear of being extreme and weird in favour of decent rock songs.

Previously, Devin’s work has fallen into two neat categories. Both extreme, and at the opposite ends of the spectrum to each other, almost like he’s trying to balance the extremity of one by going entirely the other way with the other. These, of course, are the insanely heavy Strapping Young Lad and the light, airey stuff he’s done with the Devin Townsend Band. You see, I’ve never liked DTB albums before because they’ve just been too wimpy. Not this time, I’m glad to say.

Opening with a beautiful acoustic piece called Let It Roll (this isn’t the kind of “wimpy” I mean), some electric guitars come in as we go into Hypergeek that are heavy, but set in the background so they don’t overpower the acoustic guitar and keyboards. A very clever technique. The distorted guitars have a very full tone, allowing a “wall of sound” type backing, with pinch harmonics and other subtleties being able to cut through when necessary. The more delicate parts drop away after about a minute as we get properly heavy and fast for a little while. It feels like a natural progression.

Into Triumph the guitars drop into the background a little, taking on the sound of a quietly chugging machine of some kind while Devin adopts his mid-level melodic voice and provides probably the best vocal performance I’ve ever heard from him. Some layered screaming and growling comes in later, almost used as it if were another instrument, with the main vocal focus being on the melodic. I wish Devin made this kind of music all the time. The wall of noise continues with some nice piano punching through from time to time. Comically it all drops off in an instant at the end to make way for a quick Benny-Hill-esque clean acoustic ditty before the song returns to it previous state. Bizarre, but not jarringly out of place.

This is a theme that permeates the entire album in actual fact, with strange mood changes in and out of various songs that, odd as they are, never sound wrong. It takes a remarkable musician to play some of these songs, but it takes some kind of genius-level songwriting ability to make these things work the way Devin has on this CD. Personally, my favourite part is the mid-record brace of Vampolka and Vampira with rising and falling guitar melodies and some really strong vocals from Devin.

Later on it gets a little more meandering after Gaia and a little less divided into nice neat songs, but is never any less impressive, particularly with Devin’s amazing talent for layering tracks into one cohesive soundscape (Pixillate, for example). This is unquestionably the best record of Devin Townsend’s career. Try and make sure you pick up the special edition, which features a 74-minute live DVD of the DTB in the studio. Fingers crossed for another like this soon, after the new SYL album.

“ genius ”

Tracklist: Let It Roll / Hypergeek / Triumph / Babysong / Vampolka / Vampira / Mental Tan / Gaia / Pixillate / Judgement / A Simple Lullaby / Sunset / NOTES FROM AFRICA / Sunshine And Happiness

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Progressive, Devin Townsend