I won’t attempt to even feign impartiality here: I love this album. By now, the Devin Townsend discography is — for the uninitiated — an impenetrable hodgepodge of various releases from different incarnations of the man himself and bands built around him, from Strapping Young Lad to The Devin Townsend Band to The Devin Townsend Project to… wait for it… Devin Townsend, and that’s before you get into whether Ocean Machine: Biomech was supposed to be a record by a band called Ocean Machine, or an offshoot project like Casualties of Cool or that thing he did with Jason Newsted that time, or that thing he did with Scott Reeder that time, or his book, or Ziltoid the Omniscient, and so on and so forth.

Synchestra was released in 2006 and is a crossroads album. It ties together with Strapping Young Lad‘s penultimate, likewise brilliant 2005 LP, Alien, in theme and musical callbacks, a cut like “Babysong” coming in answer to “Love?” from the SYL release, and pre-hidden-track Synchestra closer “Notes From Africa” actually reworking a part of that  song into its own multifaceted progression. This was Townsend, an artist of rare expressive and compositional capability whose career began at 19 with Steve Vai, working through the idea of procreation and coming up with a lush and genius prog metal modus in the process. “Triumph” talks about “Hooray for Dr. Young” and “Hooray the time has come to vanish once again,” and Synchestra was the final album from The Devin Townsend Band before Townsend went to ground and did the Hummer drone record and broke out the puppet for Ziltoid, then came back with The Devin Townsend Project for Ki and a succession of albums the last of which was 2016’s Transcendence — so you see where the idea of ‘crossroads’ comes from. It’s also fair to consider Synchestra a signal of intent in bringing Strapping Young Lad to a close, as that band’s last album, The New Black, was also released in 2006 but cobbled together from various odds and ends in, if I remember right, contractual obligation to produce one more record.

And if you’re still reading and your eyes haven’t glazed over, well, thanks. You also see where ‘impenetrable’ comes from. It’s a sometimes manic level of creativity.

Whatever came before or would follow after, Synchestra was a special moment put to tape. At 65 minutes, it was the realization of the vision of prog Townsend had been developing all along on records like Infinity (1998), Physicist (2000), the also-essential Terria (2001) and the first Devin Townsend Band LP, Accelerated Evolution, in 2003. Its songs run a gamut from the folkish and beautiful intro “Let it Roll” to the goofy metal parody “Vampira” — to say nothing of its lead-in “Vampolka” — kind of making fun of goth and Strapping Young Lad at the same time, while also being ridiculously catchy and over the top, to masterpieces like the building “Triumph” early on, and “Gaia,” the largely instrumental “A Simple Lullaby” and the uberwerk that is “Pixillate,” arriving as it does as part of a movement in the second half of the album that begins with the suitably bright ambient piece “Mental Tan” and unfolds across the remaining tracks plus the bonus let’s-just-have-a-good-time classic-style rocker “Sunshine and Happiness” with the real culmination in the prior “Notes From Africa.”

That second movement, of course, follows on from the first, which ties together more as individual songs than one whole piece but flows nonetheless, with “Let it Roll” moving into the chaotic “Hypergeek” and “Triumph” and “Babysong” feeding into “Vampolka” and “Vampira,” making for an initial 22 minutes that might leave one spinning but ultimately proves just crazy enough to work, in no small part because of Townsend‘s mastery as a songwriter, performer and producer. He’s not alone here — Steve Vai guests on guitar in “Triumph,” Ryan Van Poederooyen plays drums, Mike Young adds bass and tuba, Dave Young plays keys of various sorts, and there are guest vocals throughout — but there is a personal feel nonetheless in part because of the conversational, fourth-wall-breaking framing of the lyrics, and in part because the style and substance, lush as they are and cleanly, clearly produced in a way that has become a Townsend hallmark, are so much his own. As the tracklisting shifts into “Mental Tan,” “Gaia,” “Pixillate” and its stomping, soulful follow-up “Judgement,” there’s a grandeur that justifies the orchestral reference in the record’s title, the crowd sounds of the mostly-instrumental “A Simply Lullaby” feeding into the denouement of “Sunset” and the sense of arrival in “Notes From Africa,” as structure becomes no less of a plaything than melody when it comes to the broader vision of Synchestra as a whole.

And I won’t take away from that, because the album is visionary. It’s of a scope that turns most metal into dust and shows progressive rock/metal for the posturing crank it is. But I need to talk about “Pixillate” for a second because it’s just too gorgeous to go unremarked. The way the first minute builds up with that chug and the far back vocals, the voice of Gaia up front with Townsend answering back, like dialogue, the verse and chorus together, all the while this underlying motion plays out carrying the listener across an eight-minute span that’s an album’s worth of journey — it’s just incredible. It deserves every bit of volume you can give it, and if you’re at all in a position to close your eyes, tilt your head back and let it wash over you, do. Your life will be richer for it. This record is 15 years old this year and “Pixillate” still raises the laughably tiny amount hair on my arms every time. Every time.

And 15 years later, I still find something new to hear on the record. That’s cliché as fuck, but it’s true too. Even if it wasn’t though, like I said at the outset, it comes down to the basic fact that I love this album. I have associations with it positive and negative, but that’s life isn’t it? And Synchestra is an album to live with. If anyone — one person — who reads this who hasn’t heard it hears it, it’s worth it. A word to the wise though, the YouTube playlist above has volume changes that are a pain in the ass. It was the best stream I could find, but you may want to search it out otherwise.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Maybe a little more than usual, I hope you enjoy this one. Thanks for reading.

—

So I guess the big news this week was Bongzilla signing to Heavy Psych Sounds. Oh, and America’s new president. There was that too. Whatever. Looking forward to that Bongzilla LP, curious if HPS will pick up Church of Misery as well after releasing Sonic Flower stuff. That’d be something.

The real news was The Pecan was back in school this week. In-person. Made a big quality-of-life difference around here, I think most of all for him. He needs that out-of-the-house experience that has been so lagging for last year. Hey, a year. It’s been a year. Covid-era, indeed.

But things are things. I’m glad politics are bland again. I hope they continue to be so and I hope Democrats realize unity is a joke, blow away the filibuster and actually do something in the next two years before they lose their majority in congress and the slide toward right wing fascism picks up where it left off. That’s my hot take. Feel the burn.

I need to have a tooth removed. Number 30, if you’re interested. Apparently I have a massive infection in my jawline. Oops. I consult with a surgeon on Monday. Stay tuned.

Speaking of tuned — masterful segue! — there’s a new The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal today at 5pm. I don’t talk, so there’s nothing to interrupt the flow except Gimme promos, which give it that real-radio feel. At least I don’t have to listen to myself speak.

You should really listen to the Devin Townsend record.

Great and safe weekend. Hydrate, mask up, thanks for reading.

FRM.

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