Devin Townsend - Infinity (1998)
When I was a wee little child, I believe it was my sister who taught me about the concept of infinity. She explained it as being that there's no "biggest number" you can name, because someone could hypothetically just add another 1 to it to make it even bigger, and that it'd just continue and continue with no ending. I thought it was pretty incredible for like two seconds before I went back to watching "CatDog". Man, how's 'bout that show, right? How do they shit?.. What's that? It's a commonly asked joke-question and I'm just repeating it for the billionth time? Well, someone will inevitably repeat it after I do, and someone will repeat it after them. That, my friends, is infinity, and infinity is not just a tattoo on every white female community college student at a reggae festival that your asshole friends tagged you along to because you had money to buy weed and they didn't, so they smoked it up while you didn't, because you had a job interview coming up, and then when they were all "yeah I'll swing by my house to get the money to repay you" when dropping you off at your house, and they never did, you'll never stop wishing that their house would get molotov cocktail'd the fuck out even years later. That hatred is infinity, and wouldn't you know it: This album is literally "Infinity".
It's a tough thing to follow up a truly spectacular album, especially when that album is "Ocean Machine: Biomech", so instead of choosing to have a really cohesive feeling to this album, "Infinity" is basically Devin's mind (at the time) put to music, random outbursts and all, and it's fuckin' ace. I mean, "Christeen" and "Bad Devil" are fuckin' GREAT songs!! The latter of which always actually manages to make me angry because I wonder why I always go so long without listening to it, and that's saying something. They succeed as clearly showtunes-influenced tracks and sound unlike anything that'd be featured on the previous album, showing a more concentrated "I'm gonna make a catchy song" formula being thrown into the musical concoction this time around, and then you've got some weird shit like "Ants" which literally sounds like the musical equivalent of ants going into a frenzy, which is incredible, and who can forget the lovable "Noisy Pink Bubbles" referring to what Devin Townsend saw all humans as when he stopped taking his medication, it's like that time you caught your cousin sniffing his sister's underwear in the laundry room in the way that it's WEIRD AS FUCK!!
The problem is, with how sporadic Devin Townsend's mind is, while it's accurately put to music in here.. It doesn't really feel cohesive. With the previous album, if you had heard the entire album before, it makes very logical musical movements leading from point A to point B, like a proper epic ending that you can see coming and appreciate, but even on repeated listens of this album, it becomes very apparent that there's no real end goal. Sure, you can say "No, "Unity" is a great calm song!! It ends the album greatly!!" but you're a fucking dumbass because it DOESN'T end the album: "Pink Noisy Bubbles" is up next and you are basically fucking retarded, but it's hard to hate on this album for being unfocused when it seems like that was entirely the goal. This album sounds like a bunch of scrapshots of various songs Devin Townsend was cookin' up in the lab, and y'know what? They kick ass. They don't kick as much ass as the ones before, but these are still weird as fuck and excellently produced, and really, when you find yourself humming along to "War" out of nowhere, I think you'll agree that Devin Townsend managed to craft another great album, regardless of what else you have to compare it to, because it's Hevy fuckin' Devy, and it's an album that only he could've created, and I truly mean that: Can't think of an artist that's better at being Devin Townsend than Devin Townsend himself.. Because that'd be fuckin' odd if I could.
8/10
________________________________________________________
Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
