It’s not hard to see why virtuoso shredder Steve Vai plucked a 20-year-old Devin Townsend from obscurity and employed him as lead vocalist on his Sex & Religion album in 1993.
With a multi-octave range and enough personality to sink a ship, the young Canadian was plainly a prodigious talent. But even the benevolent Mr Vai could not have foreseen the extraordinary musical career that would unfold.
27 years later, Devin Townsend is firmly established as one of modern heavy music’s most unique and irrepressible talents. An eccentric but compelling artist from the start, Townsend kicked off his steady rise to glory with a dual approach, launching industrial-tinged metal crew Strapping Young Lad and his own solo efforts simultaneously.
In 1997, the release of SYL’s second album City and solo debut proper Ocean Machine: Biomech confirmed that the still-young muso was constructing his own sonic universe. That universe expanded beyond recognition over the decade that followed, with albums ranging from the epic, cerebral prog-scapes of Terria (2001) and the immaculate alt.rock bombast of Accelerated Evolution (2003) through to the claustrophobic intensity of Strapping Young Lad’s Alien (2005) and the mind-mangling indulgence of ambient projects Devlab (2004) and The Hummer (2006).
Townsend’s already singular vision seemed to blossom tenfold after he disbanded SYL in 2007. Surrounded by an all-star cast of collaborators, most notably vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen, his solo work has veered off in numerous directions, but with a tireless dedication to writing huge, uplifting tunes, even the most bizarre and ingenious of Townsend’s ideas seem to hit the target.
From a four-album concept piece about a cheeseburger (Ki/Addicted/Deconstruction/Ghost) to an album of ghostly country rock (Casualties Of Cool), everything that bears the Devin Townsend stamp seems to add to the richness of his reputation. Increasingly ambitious and theatrical live shows have also become central to his appeal.
Quite what sci-fi alter-ego ‘Ziltoid The Omniscient’ (essentially a phallic sock puppet with a dangerous coffee habit and a penchant for fart jokes) represents is open to debate, but Townsend even squeezed two albums out of him. You want unique? Here he is.
