How do you top a 25 plus album career of prog metal questing? Go even bigger. Heavy Devy recruits an orchestra for his most operatic work yet
By all accounts, Devin Townsend is compelled to create. He has very little say in the matter; it’s simply what he does.
Having recorded over 25 albums under various guises, the man's goal these days, as told to Kerrang!, is “to run out of things to say.” No small task. He’s written theatrical prog metal opuses before, but compared to the exploits of Ziltoid The Omniscient, The Moth is billed as a more sober affair.
It took Heavy Devy a decade to realise, enlisting the help of the 70-piece North Netherlands Orchestra and Choir to bring The Moth to life on stage last year. The opera’s central themes ponder on loss, change, self-acceptance, and the creative struggle to transcend one’s limitations.
So this time around there’s no coffee-swilling, flatulent alien protagonist. No poozers. No whackadoo antics. Although there is a loud, chicken buckaw to stop the staggering grandiosity of Orion from getting too up itself. This is, after all, a Devin Townsend record.
Across The Moth’s 24 tracks, Townsend leads his army of musicians seamlessly from heady orchestral pomp, through gentle choral pieces to heavy metal firepower. Home At Night shows Townsend successfully treading the line between restrained sophistication and his most hammy instincts, while Covered By Causes sounds like Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb amped up on Ziltoidian coffee.
Double-header Prepare For War and The Big Snit are epic in scope, building to an excoriating, heavy riffing finale. After all the bombast, closer We Don’t Deserve Dogs emerges as a celestial swell of choir voices brimming with renewed hope. It’s so cinematic, you half expect Townsend to launch into the Star Wars theme.
Devin has hinted that following The Moth and a few projects still in the works he may slow down and watch the roses grow. Judging by his current ‘reduced’ work rate, it seems unlikely that The Moth will be his swan song. But if it were to be his last grand statement, it’s a brilliantly bonkers work with which to bow out.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Steven Wilson, The Ocean, Haken
The Moth is out now via Inside Out Music.
