Who doesn’t love prog metal goofball Devin Townsend? The Canadian multi-instrumentalist has been hailed as a genius in the prog metal world, and for good reason. Whether it’s his past as a screaming maniac in industrial trailblazers Strapping Young Land, his architecture of country chaos with Casualties Of Cool, or his monstrous body of work with his many solo projects, from The Devin Townsend Band to the Devin Townsend Project, he’s tried everything on for size. Progressive rock, ambient, death metal, the guy has done it all. Now, after the stunningly serene ‘Lightwork’ from two years ago, he’s back with a new band and album, the goofy Powernerd, which brings him at least back to the metal realm.
“It was a conscious thing,” Devin says of his brand-new album, the music on which he wrote in just 11 days. “I thought, ‘I’ve spent so much time overthinking every aspect of my work – what would happen if I didn’t?’ Maybe I would have the opportunity to be a bit more direct with what it is that I’m trying to do. I really wanted to see if I could cut through some of the meandering.“
However, that aggression is far from the only thing to come from ‘PowerNerd’’s 11 episodic tracks. ‘Dreams of Light’, by comparison, is an evocative and dynamic four-minute ballad. ‘Younger Lover’ calms down from an explosive opening to lush verses of synths and singing, whereas ‘Falling Apart’ and ‘Jainism’ add texture after texture on top of dulcet, acoustic introductions.
Where PowerNerd’s music was written in less than a fortnight, its lyrics were refined over a far longer period of time into a narrative about strength and healing. On ‘Falling Apart’, Devin commands himself to “keep the tension under control”. “You’ve got to believe that things will only get better,” subsequent song “Gratitude” powerfully declares. These uplifting messages even play into the record’s title.
Devin offers as a definition: “I would say that a powernerd would be somebody that has a tendency that society has deemed weak or not valuable, whether that’s empathy or being an insular person or an introvert, and turns that into a type of personal power. It’s like, ‘OK, yeah, I’m sensitive to this, that and the other thing, but man, I am going to pull through! I am going to do things with that sensitivity that are rooted in strength.’”
‘PowerNerd’ will be available on several different formats, including a Limited 2CD+Blu-ray Artbook (featuring the album, bonus tracks and Devin’s first ever Dolby Atmos mix), Limited 2CD Digipak in O-card, Standard CD, Gatefold LP & Digital Album. It will be released on October 25th via Inside Out.
Photo by Tanya Ghosh.
Watch the exciting video for the title track right here: