Devin Townsend is an independent musician from Canada who has had a very successful solo career and has made some highly variable music as a result over time. This is one of his very well known releases to date, although Devin Townsend himself has had a huge amount of solo career releases over the past few decades. He has branched out to many different genres, although his main core musically has been Metal. Let’s take a listen to this album and we shall hear where it takes us.

Moonpeople begins the album with some eerie sounds, before some basic electronic drumbeats enter. Soon enough, Devin Townsend sings in a falsetto to match the beats. Instantly, this makes an impression. An okay mixture of sounds, textures and sonic sensibilities. A futuristic sounding piece of music, yet fairly minimal in its ways, this does sound passable. An okay piece of music to listen to, this is decent for what it is. The chugging and heavy guitars in the second half are interesting, before there is a breakdown and the song continues after that. This is a good listen, especially if you do like Queen or similar music. It ends after nearly five minutes in length with mellow melodies.

Lightworker begins with some muted electric guitars, piano and birds chirping. It quickly launches into an orchestral styled piece of music. This is vastly different to anything out else there to this day. Devin Townsend sings nicely and with a clear, calm voice. Without warning, this launches into a tune that sounds like a mixture of Christian music and Heavy Metal. It is certainly weird, and to be fair, isn’t that good. In any case, the effort is appreciated, even if you are not a huge fan of the music. A good song, but by far no means a great song. It just sounds melodic and trashy. Very difficult to get into from a listening perspective. In the second half are some screamed vocals, which are very over-the-top. This does not sound good at all, and is in fact, quite terrible. Some sampled speech is present, before Devin Townsend gets screaming again. A terrible piece of music throughout. You’ll be glad once it is over. It has some marching drum patterns and simple melodies to conclude. Not the best.

Equinox begins with some dark, foreboding sounds and some digital bleeps as a melody. It quickly launches into another symphonic tune that sounds good, but is not great. Again, the music is almost the equivalent of fingernails down a blackboard. Seriously, this is not worth your time, nor is enjoyable listening. A weird and very ordinary piece which is more about sonic textures than actual songcraft and musicianship, Devin Townsend fails here. Cringeworthy music that is very forgettable, the Metal screaming in the second half does not make sense here with this style of music. Obviously not hugely original in the sense of taking a leaf out of Trent Reznor’s book here, this is appalling and terrible. This album can be used as a frisbee or just avoided in general. Regrettably forgettable, just skip this already. It ends with some clanging electric guitars and electronic beats. Absymal.

Call Of The Void begins with some pitch shifted textures from the previous track, some good drum beats and launches into another unnatural and bland sounding tune. At this point, you can switch off this album and go and do something better with your time. A solo artist attempting to sound just like U2? How original, Radiohead and Coldplay have done better than this in a similar musical style. The screaming in the chorus does nothing to assist the song to be any more passionate or listenable. There is little wow factor here, let alone decent song structure to hear. The sounds here are not worth hearing, and although the chorus is okay (minus the screaming), this does not make this any more listenable as a song. A brain drain, and a good listen if you want to send your ears down the drain as well. This is appalling music, do not listen to this garbage. You’d be best off listening to something else. An ordinary and bad piece of music to hear, this can be easily avoided. The song has a long and boring outro.

Heartbreaker is not a Led Zeppelin cover. Instead, it is a rather ordinary sounding piece with some palm muted guitars and more textural sounds rather than song based music on this album. Again, it does not work. Another song to destroy your day, Devin Townsend is obviously just making music with zero appeal, and for no real reason at all. A joke of a musical piece, there is a female guest singer here, to prove how unimaginative the rest of the song is. This album is a good reason why a lot of postmodern music does not sound excellent. For a seven minute long piece, this quite clearly fails. This is an album of sounds, style and no substance. It is literally an exercise of using electronic based sounds to make an impression, rather than an enjoyable format to hear. A drag for a piece of music. There is a strange progression in the second half of this song, but this still is forgettable. Very few people will actually enjoy this music, there is nothing great about this. It goes on and on for some time, sounding really awful and terrible. Again, like fingernails down a blackboard. There is a Yes like keyboard section towards the end, but apart from that, this does need a serious re-think. Just not good enough. The music is not decent enough to be enjoyed.

Dimensions sounds very 1980s. It begins with a digital riff, some other strange and interesting (surprisingly) sounds, before drums enter and this piece is underway. It is fairly clear that this album by this piece isn’t great, even at its best moments. Some robotic vocals enter, and this piece gets moving along. Oddly enough, this is actually quite a good listen. The screamed Metal style vocals really do not support the style of music here, and the awful melodies here are really dreadful. Devin Townsend really needs a reality check musically here. Unless you just like sounds with no specific focus, please do not consider listening to this album. A weird guitar solo that is a mixture of forwards and backwards parts is here, does not help the music at all. It sounds like the effort of some doing some really bad drugs, not on point musically at all. A horrid listening experience, this is not worth your time. Towards the end of this overly long piece are some interesting textures, more wannabe Metal screaming and a tempo change for no real purpose. A bad piece of music

Celestial Signals begins with some watery sounds and beats, launching into a really bad end of movie film sound styled piece, so to speak. Devin Townsend sings softly, whilst this ordinary music plods on. Nothing special here, just more minutes of monotony. The guitars, drums and singing do not save this shockingly awful music from being any good. The screamed vocals, buried in the mix, do not make a good point musically, either. Rubbish music, this is beyond terrible. You’d be better off buying Coldplay’s worst songs instead of hearing this, this is just not good enough. A real awful listen, this does not fare well for those listening to this album. There are strings in the second half which make this sound worse. A horrid piece of music. Nothing worth observing, this is beyond terrible. Perfect music to ruin your day and ears, just stop. Awful. The piano at the end does not help, either.

Heavy Burden begins with some programmed beats, and some stupid and annoying repeated vocals. Some Radiohead wannabe main vocals then enter, something that is so unoriginal that Thom Yorke should sue over this. The song is a Pop attempt of creating a chart hit, but failing miserably at doing so. Much more textural than decent songcraft, this is quite honestly a joke. There are better albums and sounds out there than this release so a great suggestion is to listen to those instead. This sounds like a child’s nightmare lullaby, it is that bad. The vocal harmonies are awful. Nothing great nor special, it incorporates some stupid sounds in it that do not sound good. A very awful listening experience, totally cringeworthy. This sounds shockingly bad. The outro is not great, either, except for the Pink Floyd styled chirping birds.

Vacation begins with acoustic guitar and keyboard melodies, with clear singing over the top. It is too late in the album for a simple song like this to improve the quality of the album, sadly. Again, this is forgettable, even for a better track like this. Regardless, this album comes across as a failure anyway, and there is very little positive to speak of this music that is worse than banging one’s head against a brick wall, or hearing fingernails down a blackboard. Just hit skip or stop, and you should be fine afterwards. A great example of why some people should not be signed to record labels, even today. Terrible.

Children Of God is the last piece on this album, the longest at 10 minutes long and also one of the most disappointing pieces of songcraft from this album as well. It begins with washes of electronic textures and vocals, along with some sample TV speech and goes into another dreadful music that sounds like a piece that Hillsong could have done if they were on some serious illicit substances. Not worth your time, effort or energy, even if you are Christian, there is no musicality or music value to this overly long piece of music. Again, this is largely a waste of time. Despite all the sounds and textures present here, this is a brain drain musically. Please do not listen to this, there are other Christian songs out there that are both better and more emotionally moving than this piece. No singing by Devin Townsend here, this is obviously a poor attempt at a musical joke here. Neither anything great nor special here, this music is very ordinary. There are better lengthy pieces of music out there, and it seems like Devin Townsend has not made it big time due to the fact that the music here is beyond terrible. Some more of the stupid pseudo-Metal screaming is present in the middle here, and this piece falls apart. An eye rolling piece of trash for a song, you’d be better off hearing Nine Inch Nails any day than this music. Nothing soothing nor reassuring in the instrumental section in the second half, just more of the same. Just don’t listen to this album, and you will thank yourself later. A joke of an album overall, and an ordinary song. No sound effects and noises make this any better. This main section concludes after some time, with a dreaful musical interlude in the background, like we needed it, dude. We just really want the album to finish instead, thanks. Sounds of the seaside aren’t exactly original or imaginative, either. Enough to put one to sleep. A poor finish to a terrible album.

If you made it this far, you will understand exactly why nobody has really heard much about Devin Townsend. Simply put, his music is really awful. With no real basis or knowledge of music and what sounds good, this is an album that fails in many, many ways. Should you ever consider listening to this album? Absolutely not, you’d be much better off putting on the worst of the 2020s Pop chart hits and dancing to that instead. Even such songs as those have musical purpose. This does not. Avoid. Don’t even bother with the deluxe version of this release, which is another disc of songs that really aren’t worth your time.

Beyond terrible.

3/10