ovi

lad Apparently Devin Townsend was to disband SYL after ‘97’s City album, which would have been a tragedy. But they say September 11 rekindled the anger and aggression in him sufficiently to resurrect the Metallic beast , and the result was ‘03’s ‘SYL’, a more organic, although no less devastating release.
Now in early ‘05, Devin and co. unleash ‘Alien’, and upon initial listens the word devastation springs immediately to mind again. Once again, the band signals it’s intentions from the get-go, with the typically blistering, but symphonic ‘Imperial’ (and it’s immortal opening line ‘We have returned’!)
And once again Devin and his loyal sidemen take us on an apocalyptic journey through the scariest imaginable industrial flavoured soundscapes, but tempered with very Devin-esque glimpses of melody. You may have read that Alien seems to combine the noise of City, with the organic clarity of SYL. I believe this to be the case, and it culminates in Alien being Strapping’s strongest and most appealing release to date.
No standouts here – the album is wall to wall strength, with the song writing and playing being of as world conquering calibre as you would expect. Even the quite piece ‘Two Weeks’ is a very nice surprise. Devin is yet again in very fine fettle, vocally, especially in ‘Thellamus’
Overall, stunning results. But then we’ve come to expect nothing less of Mr Devy Townsend. Strapping deliver on every possible level yet again.
Alien gets ****1/2
A quick word on the accompanying DVD. It’s an excellent documentary on the making of the album. Definitely one of the more worthwhile DVD’s I’ve seen with an album release I’ve yet seen.

I have every DT album ever made, and I was looking back over their back catalogue the other day. I realized that they have released a brand new studio album every two years, without fail, since 1997’s ‘Falling into Infinity’.

Add into this equation numerous live albums, ‘official’ bootlegs, plus the fact that they tour their arses off for months and months on end and all have side projects and solo ventures when they’re NOT doing DT, and you have one hell of a ridiculously prolific bunch of musos. These blokes must live, eat, sleep and shit music!

The upshot of all of this DT is an incredible band to be a big fan of. You can rely on them to have something brand new out by the time you’ve fully ingested the previous one! Plus most of their fans can get to see them live too if they want to. They’ve even started coming here regularly!

But of course, questions remain (and their fickle fans tend to ask them in a very overt and demanding fashion!). What does the prolific nature of their output do to the QUALITY of it? Do their extra-curricular activities have an effect? And, oh yeah, what’s the new album like? (yes, I’m getting there!)

Well, let’s just say that Black Clouds and Silver Linings is a damn fine DT album. It ain’t their best, and I’m one who believes that they don’t actually have a ‘worst’ album, just their absolute ball-tearers and their really really good ones. This one is in the latter category, where I would place every one of their releases since ‘Train of Thought’, which was their last ball-tearer and finest moment, in this fan and writer’s humble opinion.

The songs themselves are rock solid epic length Dream Theater tours de force, as we come to expect. There are heavy, almost thrashy moments, there are some semi-cheesy ballads (actually possibly a little too much of this), there’s moments of soaring melody, twists and turns, complexity, odes to previous tunes and of course levels of musicianship light years beyond the aspirations of mere mortals.

In a nutshell, let’s just take the easy road and use a couple of clichés. Black Clouds and Silver Linings is par for the course, business as usual for these legends of prog! Bring on the tour.

It gets ****.

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Classic Album Review – Strapping young lad – Alien

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