Devin Townsend is one of the few genuine personalities with character, charisma, innovation and creativity in a world of increasing conformity and musical banality. As solo artist and producer, member of Strapping Young Lad (dissolved in 2007) and singer on Steve Vai's 's album Sex And Religion - no matter what he touches, Townsend inspires fans and critics alike.
Under the name Devin Townsend, David Garrett Townsend announced a series of four related albums, all of which should originally be released in 2009.
The first of these albums is called Ki and was released in Germany on May 22, 2009. Townsend says its theme is control, which is also the reason that it sounds considerably more reserved than Townsend's earlier albums. The fact that musical tension is created, but not released on several occasions is, as Townsend explains, a critical part of his concept: he deliberately made an album that does not conform to expectations based on his former work. Another aspect of his concept, Townsend says, is that the Ki guest musicians Jean Savoie (bass) and Duris Maxwell (drums) have not played metal before.
In terms of content, Ki deals with dependencies again: for example, the song Trainfire is about kicking the habit of consuming pornography.
The second album in the series, Addicted, is described as "heavy pop" you can dance to. It's addressed to listeners who prefer music without a message. According to Townsend, the album musically takes up the patterns of commercially successful bands such as Nickelback while simultaneously questioning these patterns in its lyrics. Ryan van Poederooyen (Devin Townsend Band) plays the drums again.
The third part of the series, the album Deconstruction, is meant for Strapping Young Lad fans. Chaotic and extreme metal is both a stylistic device and a topic of reflection, in a similar fashion that "heavy pop" is applied and scrutinized in the second album.
The fourth part of the series, Ghost, was released at the same time. In contrast to Deconstruction, Ghost was going to be Townsend's "softest" album.
On both albums, Townsend is supported by guest musicians like drummer Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork, Scarve, Aborted) on Deconstruction and flutist and 8-times Emmy winner Kat Epple. The two stylistically different albums were released on the same day, and were also sold as a set under the title Calm And The Storm.
In 2010, Townsend returned to the stage with Devin Townsend Project. In 2011, he performed all four Devin Townsend Project albums on four subsequent days in London. The concert recordings were released under the title By A Thread in June, 2012.
After finishing Ghost and Deconstruction, Townsend started preparing for further studio albums that he planned to release as Devin Townsend Project as well. The next album, Epicloud, was released in September 2012. It consists of two CDs with 12 tracks each. Townsend cooperated with Addicted guest singer Anneke van Giersbergen again. He compared Epicloud to the melodic parts of his Ocean Machine, Accelerated Evolution and Addicted albums.
The Bizarre World of Devin Townsend presents The Retinal Circus, another elaborate live event, was performed in London on October 27, 2012, and subsequently released as a live album.
In May 2014, Townsend released the album Casualties of Cool (in collaboration with Ki guest singer Che Dorval). Originally, Casualties of Cool was supposed to be the sixth and last Devin Townsend Project album. However, it ended up being released under its very own project title.
Between 2009 and 2014, Townsend worked on a sequel to the first Ziltoid album, "Z²", which was released in October 2014. Together with a second CD, "Sky Blue," it forms the sixth Devin Townsend Project album.
