Search - Devin Townsend :: Synchestra

A sunset retrospective - Townsend's 4th or 5th masterpiece

The Pitiful Anonymous | the Acres of Skin | 05/28/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Synchestra" is everything that has ever made Devin Townsend great. It's clear on this album that he has an even more expansive, all-encompassing idea of what "music" can be. The colorful textures, creative song structures, meticulous detail and beautiful production of this record make it even more diverse and fresh than such amazing records as "Terria" and "Ocean Machine", and contains his usual earth-shattering level of emotional intensity. It feels gold like a sunset, or like that place you know so well that it means absolute safety.



If you're new to Devin, this is as good an example of his style as ever. Distinctive but fairly simplistic guitar work, and so many layers of harmony and sound that the music seems to become more than the notes being played. And of course, his amazing, versatile voice, that simply must be heard, and can't be described. He fits in no genre, but draws most from metal and ambient music.



It's not his most mature or intelligent record (that would be "Terria"), it instead settles for a wildly playful, blissfully enlightened sensibility that has permeated his work ever since this record. Townsend can rarely be faulted for his "joke" tracks, however, since the less than serious subject matter never stops him from writing amazing arrangements that rock really really hard.



The first three tracks of "Synchestra" comprise one of my favorite album beginnings from any artist. "Let It Roll" begins deceptively as a fairly conventional folk ballad with Townsend softly singing "Come in, don't be a stranger" before building into heavily produced, layered epic harmony and bursting into the hyperactive "Hypergeek", which again begins with clean guitars but bursts abruptly into jarring heaviness, complete with blast beats. These two tracks together form an intro of sorts, which leads into the first real song, an epic called "Triumph". This song ranks among Townsend's best, with a truly anthemic chorus proclaiming "mankind, connected", a bluegrass breakdown and a fantastic solo by Steve Vai. Devin pays homage to the earlier phases of his life with the lyrics , referencing his "skies of grey and field of green", something originally contained in the lyrics of "Bastard" from "Ocean Machine".



From there things goes through several different styles, with the slower and partially sarcastic "Babysong" (which contains one section that seems intentionally written to sound like it could have been on "Terria"), the 80's metal spoof "Vampira", and the more straight-ahead rock tune "Gaia", which is one of my favorites. This song is the ultimate driving music, full of groovy riffs, surrounded by clouds of synth and clean guitars that really give the song depth.



Near the end of the album, there are several more "epics", in typical Townsend fashion, and they are all amazing. "Pixellate" is strange and ominous, "Judgment" harkens back to "Physicist" with the "I'm sorry, I had no idea..." vocal, and also shows how the line between the Devin Townsend Band and his other project Strapping Young Lad has blurred a little, as this song contains some his most violent, amelodic screams yet. Somehow it never stops the song from being beautiful... its wave-like pulse makes it another favorite. It brings to mind so many visuals at once. "A Simple Lullaby" is mostly instrumental, and the mood is completely life-affirming and in keeping with Townsend's Buddhist beliefs, is the sound of love itself. "Notes From Africa" is an urgent, mysterious, rhythmic way to end the album, containing another lyric reprise of "Oh what a feeling..." from SYL's "Love?".



"Synchestra" was described by Townsend as a look back at what he'd done, as the end of an era. As this, it succeeds masterfully, and yet still it covers new ground. This is empowering music, happy and positive without any hint of cheesiness; this is the happiness of a man who worked hard to find it, and this is an amazing, near-flawless album. Highly recommended."

Best music I've ever heard

Joseph The 43rd | Florida MO | 05/28/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm not a muso, not even usually inclined toward prog rock, but after seeing the "Almost Again" clip on youtube (by Strapping Young Lad), and then ordering a bunch of Devin CDs, they haven't left my playlist, which is usually skipping over a vast range of bands and artists of all genres.



This music is mind-blowing, sheer genius. I have a theory that Devin Townsend is Mozart or Beethoven reincarnated, thrown into a highschool full of bullies and bad teachers, and at some point handed a guitar and told to let 'er rip.



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