Any Devin Townsend fans?

Danny

Danny

Jedi
One of my favorite albums of all time is "Ocean-Biomech" by Devin Townsend.One of the best productions I've heard in a while.The feeling of it,the aural,larger-than-life presence makes the hairs on my neck stand on end.Very uplifting (to me anyway)
If I ever get overcome with despair all I have to do is crank "Life" to about 23 and it just seems to shed the filthy skin of the day right off.

Life

My life is all that I've known
And it's all that keeps me here
My time is all that I own
So I won't let it slip away...

How long can this life go on
Who we are what we are...
I'll see you on the other side

Wouldn't you rather live it on your own
Even when it bends you over
So when it comes time to go home
You don't let them fade away...

How long can this all go on?
How long till it's over?
And how long till it all comes down?
...And how bad do we need a new reminder?
 
YES! The Devin Townsend Band is one of my favorite bands. Incredibly talented musician! Ocean Machine(biomech) I would have to agree is one of his best productions, however all of his stuff is very uplifting and creative as well. Always hits an internal chord with me - look forward to his new album Ki. :D
 
yeah Devin is one talented man, strapping young lad, ocean machine and zimmers hole are 3 of my favs, i find it interesting that metal and heavy music in general usually has a lot more to say about the world we live and seems to question this journey of ours rather than spouting endless rubbish like most "radio" music....metal on brother \m/
 
I have the strong feeling that he's a forum member or at least familiar with the 4th way. My signature below is the only line in a mostly instrumental DTP song named "Lessons" from the Epicloud album: _http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/devintownsend/epicloud.html
 
I'm a HUGE Devin fan. His music is so dynamic and diverse. He seems to embody the full range of human emotions in his catalog, he has a sense of humor but also can be quite serious and philosophical. I've seen him perform live four times already and he's an outstanding musician and entertainer.

Glad to see other forum members are also privy to his work. :)
 
yup, liked a lot of his earlier work with Strapping when I was listening to more heavy stuff :) - he's definitely a good musician, and challenges views with his music; intelligent lyrics, and I think definitely knows more than he is letting on in public....
 
Hi guys, i find this interview, is really interesting.
Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlWZ8Cqh-HQ
 
I love Devin Townsend! I was lucky enough to see him perform back in 2009 or 2010. His energy on stage was brilliant.

While strapping young lad is good in its own right, Devin's solo music is amazing. It's so hard to believe he wrote all of 'The Devin Townsend Project' records at once. Creativity knows no bounds with that man, or rather he dissolved the barrier himself! His guitar and vocal technique is virtuoso level in my opinion and that's just on a purely technical level. Luckily his techniques don't hold him back (i.e. a lot of metal music today). He uses his techniques for creativity rather than using them as a showcase of skill that lacks creativity or any real emotion. Like for instance walk into a guitar center an I'm sure you'll hear a handful of guitarist that shred as fast of him but it will not be pleasing to the ear at all! hahaha
 
Perri475 said:
I love Devin Townsend! I was lucky enough to see him perform back in 2009 or 2010. His energy on stage was brilliant.

While strapping young lad is good in its own right, Devin's solo music is amazing. It's so hard to believe he wrote all of 'The Devin Townsend Project' records at once. Creativity knows no bounds with that man, or rather he dissolved the barrier himself! His guitar and vocal technique is virtuoso level in my opinion and that's just on a purely technical level. Luckily his techniques don't hold him back (i.e. a lot of metal music today). He uses his techniques for creativity rather than using them as a showcase of skill that lacks creativity or any real emotion. Like for instance walk into a guitar center an I'm sure you'll hear a handful of guitarist that shred as fast of him but it will not be pleasing to the ear at all! hahaha
Click to expand...

His stage presence is amazing - he really knows how to connect with the crowd, is very charismatic, and cracks lots of jokes on stage. Seeing him has always filled me with so much joy, and an array of other emotions embodied in his music.

He actually put out quite a few records as The Devin Townsend Project already, but the first four (Ki, Addicted, Deconstruction, and Ghost) seem to be what you're referring to, and were all written at once; he then separated the material into four records based on theme and vibe, and got different musicians to record each record based on same. This was also after he totally quit smoking pot and drinking, mainly because he felt he outgrew these habits and became a family man, and because he wanted to prove to himself he could still write great material without any drugs. He proved it alright, and wound up composing his best material on those four records, in my opinion. Since then he put out Epicloud and one of the records in Z2 with DTP (Z2 consisting of two records, Sky Blue with DTP, and the second Ziltoid concept record Dark Matters by himself under his name), all of which are also excellent, especially Sky Blue.

I agree about his ability to shred tastefully and creatively rather than just showing off, like a lot of metal seems to consist of. Actually, on Deconstruction there's quite a few songs in which he seems to be mocking the showy-type metal guitar shredding, as well as the metal fads of breakdowns, and odd-time signatures (like in the song "Planet of the Apes" when he sings "while we all have lots of bands who influence still: we all rip off Meshuggah!") That record itself is an example of his ability to do everything those fast guitarists do, but in a totally new and creative way. He takes all of the metal "tropes" and turns them on their head by fusing them with a variety of other styles. He also does this with Epicloud, much of which was inspired by J-Pop (he has a huge following in Japan) and was a record he did because he wanted to write really heavy, big sounding metal songs about love and happiness rather than about rage and anger, which is what most metal embodies.

As you can see, I love me some Devin. Total fanboy here. I feel like he's one of the best things to ever happen to music and that he's highly underrated.
 
Very huge fan here. I met him once after a show he is very nice and approachable. He has great stage performance, perhaps due to his mom's work with Broadway and Steve vai. Nobody's here is one of my favorite songs of his.
 
PhoenixToEmber said:
His stage presence is amazing - he really knows how to connect with the crowd, is very charismatic, and cracks lots of jokes on stage. Seeing him has always filled me with so much joy, and an array of other emotions embodied in his music.

He actually put out quite a few records as The Devin Townsend Project already, but the first four (Ki, Addicted, Deconstruction, and Ghost) seem to be what you're referring to, and were all written at once; he then separated the material into four records based on theme and vibe, and got different musicians to record each record based on same. This was also after he totally quit smoking pot and drinking, mainly because he felt he outgrew these habits and became a family man, and because he wanted to prove to himself he could still write great material without any drugs. He proved it alright, and wound up composing his best material on those four records, in my opinion. Since then he put out Epicloud and one of the records in Z2 with DTP (Z2 consisting of two records, Sky Blue with DTP, and the second Ziltoid concept record Dark Matters by himself under his name), all of which are also excellent, especially Sky Blue.

I agree about his ability to shred tastefully and creatively rather than just showing off, like a lot of metal seems to consist of. Actually, on Deconstruction there's quite a few songs in which he seems to be mocking the showy-type metal guitar shredding, as well as the metal fads of breakdowns, and odd-time signatures (like in the song "Planet of the Apes" when he sings "while we all have lots of bands who influence still: we all rip off Meshuggah!") That record itself is an example of his ability to do everything those fast guitarists do, but in a totally new and creative way. He takes all of the metal "tropes" and turns them on their head by fusing them with a variety of other styles. He also does this with Epicloud, much of which was inspired by J-Pop (he has a huge following in Japan) and was a record he did because he wanted to write really heavy, big sounding metal songs about love and happiness rather than about rage and anger, which is what most metal embodies.

As you can see, I love me some Devin. Total fanboy here. I feel like he's one of the best things to ever happen to music and that he's highly underrated.
Click to expand...

I feel he's highly underrated as well (Thought it's kinda easy to get pigeon-holed in the 'solo-composer' metal realm), but it's great that he's established himself enough to continue doing what he loves. Thanks for refreshing me on his discography! Hahaha he takes musical satire to a whole new level without intending to! I just love seeing a metal musician not taking themselves so seriously.

I got into Devin Townsend around the time I started falling out of metal (and started focusing more on just finding new music in general that i liked), but I'll still listen to Ki fairly often. I really like how held back that record is; the more simple song structures led to more interesting melodies and progressions altogether in my opinion.

As I said I don't listen to a whole lot of metal anymore (in comparison to mostly listening to metal growing up), but when I do I'll normally turn to these groups of which I highly recommend if you haven't heard of them before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23F2KD2zn_Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1jkUJ4IMUM
 
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