Devin Townsend Project - Contain Us (2011)
I believe this first leaked on Black Friday, 2011, didn't it? My first Black Friday: We went up to Walmart and pretended we were in "Dawn of the Dead", someone dropped a TV, it sounded (to my teenage ears) like a gunshot and I was sure that we were all going to die.. And we did, but then we got better. I remember being really hyped for this box set (which includes the first four Devin Townsend Project albums) to come out because of the bonus discs, which is going to be the ONLY thing I'm rating/reviewing in this review because the initial four albums are still as awesome as you know they are, or hell, possibly even more because "Deconstruction" and "Ghost" have been remastered, and while I can't really tell a difference with the remastering on the latter, "Deconstruction" mainly has a change of bass, which REALLY helps the album on the low-end front because the old bass-sound just sounded kinda.. I don't know, off in comparison? Still good, but the remaster is clearly the much-superior product. Anyhow, onto the discs..
The bonus disc that's obviously the most interesting is "Stuff That Was Almost Stuff", an album full of album leftovers from each of the initial four Devin Townsend Project albums, and lemme tell you: If you thought the idea of Devin Townsend doing multiple styles of music across those four albums was great, you'll fucking love hearing all of those unique styles combine onto one disc of what might as well be a new studio album. Sure, there's two tracks not meant for any DTP albums, being a re-recording of "Om" and an instrumental reworking of Strapping Young Lad's "Fucker", but they're both great, and add to the genius that is this disc. I'm REALLY fucking surprised that some of these were leftovers.. The ones from "Ki" and "Ghost" in particular might've been my favorite songs from each project, had they been included on. However, I couldn't really wrap my head around the "Deconstruction" leftover "Ho Krll" working on that album.. So really, it's best that that (holy fuck do you ever feel like a moron typing that?) one was left off. Still, this disc is unusually solid for an album of album leftovers that were left off for apparently no fucking reason, because it's not like they're any lesser quality. The only thing keeping this disc from being an actual Devin Townsend Project studio album is music genre consistency, but other than that.. Hoo doggy my loins are glistening with MOISTURE!!.. Well, if you cut out "Traestorz" which is just Devin fucking around with electronics for almost 20 minutes, and if you hear it once, I have no fucking idea why you'd ever want to hear it again. Sure, it has the musical origins of part of "The Mighty Masturbator" but just go listen to that song, you filthy charlatan. Still, that's just a minor blip on the radar that lasts for ALMOST 20 FUCKING MINUTES so it's whatever, y'know?
Then we mosey our asses over to "Stuff That Was Stuff Before It Was Finished Stuff" and we get tons of demos from the initial Devin Townsend Project albums, most notably including some from "Addicted" featuring Hevy Devy singing in falsetto for Anne van Giersbergen's parts, but out of all of these rough-as-dicks sounding demos, that's pretty much all you're gonna get that's noteworthy.. Aside from some demos that DIDN'T turn into finished stuff and couldn't gone on "Stuff That Was Almost Stuff"! What the fuck?! "Brown Man" almost sounds strangely System of a Down-ish with its chorus of "PUSSYPUSSYPUSSYPUSSYPUSSY OM NOM!!" and I guess that can help explain why I love Devin Townsend so much: He's a silly motherfucker. Obviously this is the weaker of the two discs, and is only even mildly interesting if you're a hardcore fan, but y'know, whatever, gotta keep on truckin'.
If you weren't one of the lucky sons of bitches that had gotten the bonus vinyl that came with 500 copies of this or some shit, including "Dinosaurs" and "Ziltoidian Rapture", then you should know that you're really not missing out on anything at all. "Dinosaurs" is just a silly little jazz number and "Ziltoidian Rapture" is just Devin fucking around for nine minutes, singing in-character as Ziltoid as he takes choir arrangements from "Deconstruction" and wastes your excitement on causing tomfuckery for nine minutes. Overall, I -really- like "Stuff That Was Almost Stuff" and even if I don't care for those other two bonus discs, I feel like that specific one justifies the rating I'm giving it. Good shit to make you feel like you didn't just waste your money buying vinyl copies of albums you had already bought when they came out.
8/10
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