Review# 5
What do you get when you get a (at the time) very angry and disillusioned man who is a musical genius, both on the guitar and lyrically, has a strange fascination with life and science (he is still these things!)? .... Well you get Devin Townsend and Strapping Young Lad... and no-one in the band is strapping or young but they are lads!
This album is amazing, with the exception of one 12min track that I will get to in due time. The album really just starts with a bang and just gets angrier. 3rd song in, Shitstorm, is a very good example of how Dev was feeling at the time, dealing with substance abuse and the crazy pressure the media were putting on him to be the “mad scientist” of metal (due to subject matter more prevalent in his solo work and also his general craziness (in part due to his bipolar disorder) and technical ability). The lines “And I don't want to fight.../ Because I don't know what's WRONG or RIGHT/ But I'll do ANYTHING just to get some FUCKING sleep tonight.../ And I can't even EAT/ And I can't even FUCKING PISS!!!/ All I've been doing is thinking about GOD and DEATH INFINITY!!!!!” spat into the microphone with the amazing Gene Hoglan on drums pounding it all into your eardrums is just fucking amazing and makes you feel so much better about everything.
Love? Is another killer track, this one with relationships and Possessions is about having babies and is possibly the first metal song to do with starting a family! Two weeks is a random break from the chaos, taking an ambient turn before breaking back into the madness that is Devin’s mind in musical form. Most of the lyrical content comes across as anger and chaos but there is a sprinkling of tongue and cheek/self humour in here too.
Info Dump, is an instrumental piece that is meant to reflect his state of mind after he had stopped taking the medication for his bipolar disorder. It is 12min long and is odd distorted sounds and sound bytes of someone talking/muttering.... something. So while this may be relevant to Devin and perhaps to anyone who has bipolar, I find it really hard to listen to and have only listened to it once or twice since I first brought the album 5 years ago.
But with the one exception this is a fantastic album, one I would take to a desert island. And the bonus track on the Australian edition, Aftermath (live), is a fantastic way to end after sitting through 12min of info dump. Sorry Dev, I love you dearly but that song just isn’t my cuppa!
Check the vids and see the “Skullet” in action!
What do you get when you get a (at the time) very angry and disillusioned man who is a musical genius, both on the guitar and lyrically, has a strange fascination with life and science (he is still these things!)? .... Well you get Devin Townsend and Strapping Young Lad... and no-one in the band is strapping or young but they are lads!
This album is amazing, with the exception of one 12min track that I will get to in due time. The album really just starts with a bang and just gets angrier. 3rd song in, Shitstorm, is a very good example of how Dev was feeling at the time, dealing with substance abuse and the crazy pressure the media were putting on him to be the “mad scientist” of metal (due to subject matter more prevalent in his solo work and also his general craziness (in part due to his bipolar disorder) and technical ability). The lines “And I don't want to fight.../ Because I don't know what's WRONG or RIGHT/ But I'll do ANYTHING just to get some FUCKING sleep tonight.../ And I can't even EAT/ And I can't even FUCKING PISS!!!/ All I've been doing is thinking about GOD and DEATH INFINITY!!!!!” spat into the microphone with the amazing Gene Hoglan on drums pounding it all into your eardrums is just fucking amazing and makes you feel so much better about everything.
Love? Is another killer track, this one with relationships and Possessions is about having babies and is possibly the first metal song to do with starting a family! Two weeks is a random break from the chaos, taking an ambient turn before breaking back into the madness that is Devin’s mind in musical form. Most of the lyrical content comes across as anger and chaos but there is a sprinkling of tongue and cheek/self humour in here too.
Info Dump, is an instrumental piece that is meant to reflect his state of mind after he had stopped taking the medication for his bipolar disorder. It is 12min long and is odd distorted sounds and sound bytes of someone talking/muttering.... something. So while this may be relevant to Devin and perhaps to anyone who has bipolar, I find it really hard to listen to and have only listened to it once or twice since I first brought the album 5 years ago.
But with the one exception this is a fantastic album, one I would take to a desert island. And the bonus track on the Australian edition, Aftermath (live), is a fantastic way to end after sitting through 12min of info dump. Sorry Dev, I love you dearly but that song just isn’t my cuppa!
Check the vids and see the “Skullet” in action!
Shitstorm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW9WUCJSK1E
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