Devin Townsend – "PowerNerd"
Most accurate album title since "British Steel"
Devin Townsend is one of those artists with whom I'm primarily acquainted by way of his live shows. While those tend to be formidable, I haven't been following his studio output outside of Strapping Young Lad apart from 2007's iconic "Ziltoid the Omniscient" and 2009's "Addicted". A mistake, many would claim. Myself included.
As such, I don't have much in the way of reference when it comes to assessing "PowerNerd", his solo album number, what, 800 or something. But I do know of two overarching contributing factors to the album ending up sounding the way it does:
- The main character being such a wacko and all, he gave himself 11 days to write the whole thing and 1 day to rehearse it. Kinda like a professional challenge, I guess.
- As opposed to on most of his previous releases, The Dev went for less progressive and all-round simpler songs on "PowerNerd".
While nobody outside the man's fan base would've guessed the former, the latter is plain all the way through. The opening title track and first single, apart from all those Townsend signature synth layers, sounds more like a classic, uptempo Motörhead tune than anything else. And in the chorus, the damn thing even turns out to be based on a blues cadence. First and foremost, though, it kicks your ass.
In the same, more lowbrow end of things, there's the groovy fist-pumper "Knuckledragger" whose accentuated 6/4 time perfectly fits those wonderfully zany chorus lyrics of "Gimme another, another beer, man". And you gotta love that combination of acoustic country, old-school rockabilly, and brutal progressive death metal in closing coffee-anthem "Ruby Quaker" – an obvious throwback to "Ziltoid...".
Apart from these, "PowerNerd" is, on the whole, a slow, melodic, catchy, and, above all, big album cultivating contrasts between clean, quiet, open verses on one hand, and loud, gigantic, heavy, and beautiful choruses on the other. And while those choruses are the unquestionable mainstay of the whole thing, they're powerful enough to see it through, largely. There's a reason why The Dev released "Jainism" as the second single, its pure minor-key metal riff, almost Enya-like pre-chorus synth, and the dramatic melody and mind-expanding lyrics of the chorus coming together irresistibly.
Devin Townsend manages to create catchier and more saccharine music than any of his many metal peers, and yet remain a bigger antithesis to the calculated logic behind pop music than most contemporary mainstream metal bands.
And there's a reason why The Dev released "Gratitude" as the third single, its cadence and melody being pure pop, and its chorus being one big – again, irresistible – banger that you couldn't shake after two listens if your life depended on it. And you wouldn't want to. Because while many of these are arguably pure pop melodies, DT avoids the pitfalls of the downright pop genre by thinking and playing his music meticulously heavy, and by producing it meticulously grandiose.
Indeed, a song like "Ubelia", in all its moving, affectionate tenderness, while far from classic heavy metal, is also far too massive, and, at the same time, too beautiful to even be thought of in the same category as those brain cell-corroding pixelated fart sounds with their obnoxious robot vocals that are passed off as popular music and played in so-called "clubs" these days. Yes, while popular music is degenerating into an unintended insult against itself, The Dev is a much-needed actual musician who composes and performs actual music on actual musical instruments with the skill level of someone who's been composing and performing music long before the accursed invention of Auto-Tune. Which, by the way, is the case.
And so, never pandering, never hysterical, never happy-go-lucky, Devin Townsend manages to create catchier and more saccharine music than any of his many metal peers, and yet remain a bigger antithesis to the calculated logic behind pop music than most contemporary mainstream metal bands. None mentioned, too few forgotten (or persecuted). And that's as big of an accomplishment as writing a solid album like this in just 11 fucking days.
So, while 5 out of 6 might be a bit of a stretch, I'll be happy to reward it anyway. If nothing else, then simply because this man is brilliant.
Rating: 5 out of 6
Genre: Semi-progressive metal / heavy pop rock
Relase date: 25/10/2024
Label: Inside Out / HevyDevy
Producer: Devin Townsend (as if you'd have to ask)