 
When talking about variety within music, no one
man possesses more than the wacky perhaps certifiably
insane Devin Townsend. No 1 of his solo albums
have been alike, this being the third of which
to grace stores within the past year and a half;
the other albums “Ki”, “Addicted”,
“Deconstruction” and “Ghost”
were all a 4 part concept, “Epicloud”
promises something a little bit different. After
reading up on his interviews and descriptive terms
he intends for this to be a “space opera”
which i take will contain ominous tones, surreal
harmonies and good vibes but dark themes, sounds
good right? We’ll see…
It’s definitely easier on the ears than
the rest of Townsend’s material, fitting
in with pop cross metal he’s been talking
about, I can see this being referred to in the
future as the gateway album to the rest of the
records. Dynamic yet simplistic would be key word
to use as description, there’s nothing too
complex like all this Mathcore nonsense floating
around but that does not mean it doesn’t
push the boundaries of its kind, it keeps its
edge but adds so much more with choir vocals showering
over and an ambiance of heavy tones (check out
“Grace” and “Save Our Now”
for your own reference). An interesting anecdote
at this point would be the song “Kingdom”
which you may also remember cropped up on the
1999’s “Physicist” album but
is rerecorded specifically for this album, proving
the point that the Anneke/Townsend relationship
works past, present and future.
To sum up my findings I have to say that on the
whole this is a perfect craft of material, it
may not be as complex but that was the point,
he wanted to experiment with other ways of writing
and this is definitely a different Devin Townsend
to what we’ve seen for decades, we cannot
say yet that this will be a timeless classic as
we will need to see if the lack of not technicality
per say but definitely the hooks that complexity
gives, all we can say that this is feckin’
wicked!
4/5
Review by James Webb
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