Devin Townsend Project - Ki (2009)
Ah, yes, the Devin Townsend Project, one of (in my opinion, mind you) one of the best things to happen to the progressive metal scene because of Devin Townsend's ability to mix progressive elements with accessibility, and most importantly when it comes to progressive metal: Not sounding like a fuckin' dork. On this album, he's still doing most of the shit by himself, but he's also joined by Dave Young (who was also in the Devin Townsend Band) on keyboard, piano, and ambience, Ché Aimee Dorval and Ryan Dahle on additional vocals, Jean Savoie (a guy who apparently played bass in a local Beatles cover band) on bass, and most curiously of them all, Duris Maxwell (of Jefferson Aeroplane and The Temptations fame) on drums, which is fucking crazy to me, but what's really interesting to me is that (as far as my knowledge extends) none of these people except for Dave Young and (fucking obviously) Devin Townsend have played in bands that play heavy music. To my knowledge, Devin Townsend recruited everyone to get multiple pairs of new ears to give opinions on music they aren't that acquainted with, and what to do with the songs. This really helps to make sure that Devin Townsend doesn't accidentally end up releasing an album as garbage as "The New Black".
Something I like about this album is that it's mostly calming music but it's delivered in such a tense, eerie way. Devin Townsend rarely plays his guitar with distortion on this album, instead preferring to bring it back to a more restrained, bluesy type of playing, and because of the ambience and production, it sometimes sounds like a mixture of the music your dad grew up listening to with a little bit of "I'm going to fucking kill everyone on this planet" serial killer sinister edge to it, but while the music builds and intensifies, it rarely ever climaxes (God, I hate using that word) in an aggressive, blood-thirsty way. It's like being strapped to a chair in the middle of a room with a zombie, and the zombie is trying to eat you, but it's also chained to something in the ground, keeping its best efforts at grabbing you just an inch or two away from actually touching you. If you like that metaphor, I'll grant you the privilege of dropping me fifty dollars via PayPal. If you don't, I'll grant you the privil- FUCK YOU.
This album is the definition of a slow-burner, both musically and how long it'll take you to fully understand it and his intentions with this album, especially if you get winded by the heavy, dark "Disruptr" and "Gato" being back-to-back on the tracklisting. If you put this on expecting balls-to-the-wall riffs with Devin screaming like a demon fresh outta Hell, you're shit outta luck and you should've probably spent twenty fucking seconds Googling the album instead of just browsing the "Overwatch" Wiki you fucking moron. Does that date this review to a time when that game was relevant? Oh, fuck.. If anyone reads this review in a year, I'm FUCKED. Anyhow, I think this is a pretty hard album to get into, even moreso than Devin Townsend's earlier works (aside from those two awful ambient albums he had put out before) and I can see a lot of fans easily dismissing this album, because that's exactly what I did, but I think there's a little bit of everything Devin Townsend can do on here, just presented in much more of a restrained, bare-bones manner that focuses more on setting the scene than Michael Bay-ing the hell out of it.
7/10
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