Devin
Townsend - Terria - 2001
Being just 30 years old, with a pile of jobs and projects carried out,
the Canadian musician Devin Townsend has
become one of the most prolific workers on the metal and prog-metal world
of these last years. When he was nineteen he had already participated
with musicians like Steve Vai, that he
used him as guitarist and chorus in the American presentation tour of
the album "Sex and Religion",
and where Devin achieved a great popularity
and acceptance among American public. His following step was to form their
own band the Strapping Young Lad, with
which recorded three records of pure new aged -metallic dexterity and
that were well received from the press, titled "Heavy
as a really heavy thing", "City" and "Not
sleep till bedtime", this last one recorded live in Australia,
and a very valuable record for the fans of metal. Later and after participating
in the tribute record to Judas Priest and
Rush, Devin
was fed of their band and of the record companies that tied him up, so
he created his own level (Heavy Devy Records).
From this point the young musician is free to create and to develop his
style without tying, creating a peculiar musical world that matches with
his desires as an artist, building a characteristic and at the same time
innovating style. A style based on crossing two styles that seemed impossible
of uniting. A new age mixture of developments, atmospheres, spaces of
relaxed and mystical sensations with the wild and rawest face of the metal.
In 1997 "Ocean Machine" was published
and in 1999 "Infinity" was born.
Two works based on the lines and style that I previously commented you.
In 2000 "Physicist" saw the record
market as a collection of songs of speed-metal mixed with simple melodies.
"Terria"
is the new creation in the 2001 with a Devin
that explores with in the sounds that the nature suggests him, creating
environments of extraordinary greenness and humid visions, mixed with an
extreme of hard edge guitar playing and desperate screaming, folding them
into a symmetrical form, with a surprising result of a very strong contrasts.The
concept that seems to go unfolding along the record is the constant fight
of the nature against the monster of the destruction that man represents.
"Olives" (3:21) is a brief introduction
and first look to the basic idea of Devin,
harshly almond-shaped landscapes produced by the human being. "Mountain"
(6:32) is harder in its assembly, with a rhythmic guitar that shows two
faces, the candy and the less sweet one, with thrilling and changing developments.
"Earth day" (7:34) shows with
all its power the contained rage in a musician full of beauty and composite
delicacy, marked by a fury that emerges constantly. The production of this
"Terria" is spectacular, the sensation
of being siting down in an immense field punished by the elements is constant.
"Deep peace" (7:34) is a pretty
piece of great melodic and more changing rhythms laid on lines of grandeur,
massive and controlled developments coming from all the instruments. "Canada"
(6:57) is the continuation of the previous one with small parenthesis, silences
and vocal harmonies. We follow with "Down and
Under" (3:43) where the acoustic guitar appears, leading to
a gradual increment of power that comes from most relaxed melodies to ecstasy
and excess of decibels. "The fluke"
(7:16) is a simple song with a quick rhythm and great strength that breaks
to return to the new age formula. "Nobody's
here" (6:54) is a ballad with a great volume with pretty melody
and very good arrangements and production, although rather repetitive. "Tiny
tears" (9:12) is the longest and also the most calmed one, very
similar to the previous one, the robotic and at the same time ethnic voices
fill this song, also wrapped around immense guitar playing. "Stagnant"
(4:55) closes the CD with a typical American or Canadian metal song, with
boasting guitar.
A work
plenty of meaning. A record that hasn't left anything in the production
and that has turned out to be an exceptional practice of this formula that
this Northern American is carrying out during these last years. This new
delivery is wisely filled by this so raw and so natural environment at the
same time. A record full of power, that can be excessive to the fragile
hearted progressive ones, and that will be perfect to the most restless
and risked ones.
Jordi Costa - October 2001
- Inside Out
