638. Devin Townsend Project / Deconstruction. 2011. 1.5/5

It was only at a friend's insistence that I “must listen to his new albums” that I decided to revisit Devin Townsend and his work. It has been some time since I had listened to Strapping Young Lad's Alien album, which had both intrigued and bored me at the same time. In short, his style of manic mayhem does not sit in my sphere of music listening enjoyment. However, having had the albums forced into my hands and told to report back with “how much you loved them”, I decided to delve into its mystique.

As with most of his stuff, this is really out there. It is the kind of music that I can imagine some parents listening to for about thirty seconds and then calling up for the priest to perform an exorcism. It truly is a wall of sound, punctuated by periods of morose acoustic musings. Some of these songs (“Juular” in particular, and half of “The Mighty Masturbator”) almost sound like he’s trying to write a carnival song - albeit an extreme type of carnival song. There’s a bit of everything here, and while that will no doubt please his followers, it really just confuses me.

I appreciate Devin’s undoubted talents, all the way back to his version of Judas Priest’s “Sinner” on A Tribute to Judas Priest: Legends of Metal tribute album. But his own music and style just doesn’t sit with me at all. Deconstruction to me is a little like sitting in the dentist’s chair – the soft mood music is the edginess before it all starts, and the frantic wave of noise is the dentist’s drill as it hacks into your molars. I can absolutely see why fans of Devin Townsend would love this, because it is much like his other material. To be honest, I will at some stage have to check out the first two albums in this four piece set just to satisfy my curiosity, but I no longer need to dwell on this album, nor its successor Ghost.