Devin Townsend Project – ‘Transcendence’ [Review]
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A camel is a horse designed by committee.
This single sentence encapsulates the core of my perspective on music. I love hearing one person give birth to an entire creative project, aided ideally by others who have as little input as is necessary to get the job done. Creative control freaks hold the key to my heart, whether they be virtuoso guitarist-composers such as Steve Vai, or erudite musical polymaths like Devin Townsend.
Plus, if you Google that same sentence, this image comes up:
If my perspective is always right and never wrong, those animals should be the other way round. The creative technologists, producers, and planning directors should be fucking the artist’s single creative vision until it’s black and blue and unrecognisable. The genius artist should be getting shafted by those convinced they somehow “know better”.
In the case of Transcendence, my normal perspective has been proven so flawed that I’m just going to throw it out of the window completely. Why? Because on this album, Devin Townsend actively sought the opinions and brainwaves of those around him (from the members of DTP to the associated production, engineering, management, and label staff) in order to create almost 70 minutes of music that sit on a par with any of the other long-players Townsend has ushered into the world in the past.
Is this The Greatest Devin Townsend Album Of All Time? The question is redundant; all anyone can ask of an artist is to produce a piece of work that reflects their present state of mind. When Devin Townsend is involved, we’re talking about art, not a commercial product, something akin to a Picasso painting rather than an iPhone.
Expecting any serious artist to repeat past glories requires complete ignorance of the nature of the creative mind. What’s come before has come before, and in an album’s case still exists, accessible at any time. What will be is unknowable – not to mention unforeseeable.
It has to be that way if the results are to be any good. That’s why creative committees fail so often. The wrong kind of control can suffocate a creative spark, snuffing it out as a Big Mac magically materialises in its place.
Listening to Transcendence feels similar to walking through a big city’s main art gallery. From the moment Truth kicks in you’ll find yourself overcome by the same sense of awe you feel staring at a perfectly rendered painting wider than your house and almost as tall. Transcendence’s opener originally opened Infinity – the first Devin Townsend album to bear his real name – and it feels an appropriate choice, especially as it leads into a vulnerably-delivered message from Townsend to his fans.
Key words: “Everything’s changed, but I am home…”
…and we’re into Stormbending. Cue one absolutely massive wall of sound merging distorted guitars and synths that is unmistakeably Devin. Producer (and Periphery bassist) Adam “Nolly” Getgood’s skills are pushed to the fore here as punchy kick drums perfectly support epic, soaring chords and vocals as well as a tastily speedy solo. Wicked bass work from Brian “Beav” Waddell, too.
This I guarantee: You will at some point find yourself singing along with Stormbending on public transport while under headphones. Don’t fight the urge; just let it happen.
Transcendence takes a turn for the heavier on Failure, where chunky extended-range guitars chug with a hint of djent as Townsend delivers one of this album’s finest moments. Falsetto that briefly brings Muse’s Matt Bellamy to mind, and onwards through stomping grooves, majestic dynamic shifts, one extended wah-drenched solo, and incredible drumming courtesy of Ryan Van Poederooyen during the outro.
Adding an unnecessarily excessive number of vowels to a swear word seems appropriate here. So…fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Secret Sciences you’ve likely heard already, a cool cut where acoustic guitars, overdriven electrics, a close-to-poppy vocal, and warming chord changes all occur within the first minute before Devin dips slowly into heavy territory once more. Still there’s a sense of spaciousness as bestial drums, fat guitars, and luxurious keyboards vie for attention and simultaneously support each other in service to the song.
Then that core hook: “Let it go / Anyway / Let it be a part of yesterday”. Letting go may be a common-to-the-point-of-cliché songwriting topic, but when Devin Townsend’s delivering those words with guttural passion, who cares? Sometimes the most important truths need to be repeated over and over again until people get it.
Plus those lines share airtime with a killer proggy breakdown, where each instrument winds its way melodically around the others until they’re all tied up like a ball of twine. Awesome.
Song most likely to spark a circle pit: Higher. Anticipation builds via the main hook before we get hit across the head with a bludgeoning beatdown – one of several to come over the course of Higher’s near-ten-minute running time. Who the fuck said prog was boring?!
Stars is the kind of song title you’d expect to spot on a Bieber album – but in this case, beneath the name lies a host of accessible vocal lines given strength by everything from classic-Devin-Townsend distorted tidal waves to lilting acoustics and perfect female vocals. Next up, Transcendence’s title track strides onto the scene, one glorious soundscape following another, one minute stately, the next spectacularly intense. Offer Your Light starts off sounding like the title theme to an anime movie before Townsend’s guitars chop it to pieces and kick drums threaten to overwhelm everything else. All killer – zero, zero filler.
Down to the final two songs now, both approaching eight-and-a-half minutes in length. From The Heart soars gracefully, a monolithic love song crammed with bittersweetness and crushing beauty that collapses into one of Transcendence’s softest sections, and then we face down closing offering Transdermal Celebration, a Ween cover. This is where Devin Townsend makes his final-for-now stand, sonically glaring at the listener in a way that sneers, tongue in cheek, “Yeah – I’m covering a Ween song. The fuck are you going to do about it?”
As it happens, Ween’s original is pretty cool, and you can definitely draw an influential line between it and Transcendence. Devin Townsend’s version starts off relatively faithful to the original before taking off into Couldn’t-Give-A-Shit-Deal-With-This-You-Fuckers Land. It’s a perfect bookend to complement Truth; both represent aspects of Townsend’s past, and anyone still going “…wait, a fucking Ween song?!” will nonetheless love it when it finally fills their earholes. The cover lasts about as long as the original, the remaining five-ish-minutes made up of ambient synths, the ideal respite after all that’s come before.
It’s a time to reflect on what Transcendence really is. A mix of nods to the past and the product of an unquenchable desire to always be changing, evolving somehow. Ultimately, Transcendence left me feeling that despite everything he’s achieved so far, all those albums, all those shows, the critical acclaim and die-hard fans won through pure excellence, Devin Townsend is still just getting started.
It also proved one of my most deeply-rooted opinions about music to be utter bullshit.
I can live with that.
Sometimes racehorses really can be designed by committee.
TMMP RATING: 100% (Essential Listening – as if it could be less than that!)
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