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 The inimitable DEVIN TOWNSEND may have traded his trademark skullet for a more aerodynamic haircut, but THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT still makes MITCH ALEXANDER react with two sets of metal horns in the air.
Devin Townsend will be chiselled into stone as the metal fan’s metal fan, for his incalculable contribution to the betterment of its hard and fast culture for decades. The deliriously prolific multi-instrumentalist songwriter speaks and lives with an astounding level of belief in his pursuits. Conversations are just as likely to delve into an obscure Kreator Japanese-only B-Side as they are to be an unleashing of his mischievous humour (half scholarly, half puerile). It is this array of traits that have spawned a loyal legion of fans, from his early days recording with Steve Vai to the breakneck brutality of five Strapping Young Lad albums and now onto The Devin Townsend Project. When he speaks of his latest activities, including a looming Australian tour to support the second album (Addicted) released under this latest moniker, you can practically feel his eyebrows raising in excitement.
“I’m mixing a live recording that we did in America, it sounds great!” he bursts with minimal prompting. “I’ve found a great technique for recording all our shows live, and it’s given me a lot of confidence because I’ve realized, as a band, we can pull off some amazingly renditions of stuff that have been elusive for a long time.
“And beyond that, I’m just getting all the set and samples ready for an admittedly huge undertaking that is the two and half hour shows in Australia.”
And that is Townsend in a nutshell: a working man’s conviction, a guitar geek’s fascination and a critic’s watchful eye. Only a person that understands both the brutality and hilarity of heavy metal could write a 50-minute space-metal-rock-opera about an alien warlord, bookended by the extreme metal of SYL’s 2006 swansong The New Black and the experimental ambience of Ki with The Devin Townsend Project. Acknowledging that the foundations of heavy metal are ripe for parody, Townsend accepts these flaws, and the perceptions that are created amongst non-believers as a result, by focusing on the positives.
“There’s something about heavy music that connects you with emotion on a profoundly heavy level,” he theorises. “”Sure, you talk about heavy music, metal, the typical rock moves one through 43, but beyond that, heavy music is a forum to represent emotion in a way that no other music can.
“I can understand why people say ‘I can’t stand listening to Iron Maiden, Slayer’, because it’s the typical metal aesthetic, right? But I guess what I’m hoping is that, by infusing a different frame of mind into it, you can take that crushing quality that makes heavy metal so visceral and add it to something. Let’s talk about insects, nature, geography … It’s not cheeseball, let’s just make it huge.”
To plagiarise Townsend’s own words, Addicted is characteristically heavy as a really heavy thing. But amidst all the guttural screams and thunderous riffs there are majestic female harmonies, luscious arrangements and, by Devy’s own accounts, some of the most ‘poppy’ songs he’s ever committed to tape. And unlike previous flirtations with melody and grandeur, Addicted doesn’t teeter into pomposity with a knowing smirk. You may have learned to love Hevy Devy; the new Devin Townsend is just as reliably out of control, but with some new shades added to the palette. Same brutality, different haircut.
THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT plays The Tivoli on Friday Mar 12. ADDICTED is out now through HevyDevy/Century Media. www.hevydevy.com
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