Devin Townsend Project

Eras Part 1

Maverick Canadian kicks off vinyl reissue campaign. Devin Townshend is the prog-metal Frank Zappa: a super-prolific one-man music industry pinballing from style to style, building a self-contained universe populated by pottymouthed extra-terrestrial puppets in the process. Either that or he’s a chronic oversharer who just needs to calm the fuck down.

This vinyl box set collects the first four albums he made under the Devin Townsend Project banner, which was an attempt to exorcise the interlinked ghosts of mental illness and his former band Strapping Young Lad.

Originally released during a two-year period of manic creativity, they show him at his most brilliant and infuriating. On Addicted (2009) and Deconstruction (2011), he revels in the role of mad scientist, turning up all the dials with increasingly wide eyes until things nearly break, occasionally dumping in an unwanted dose of wacka-wacka Canadian humour. The twin flip-sides are Ki (2009) and Ghost (2011), both hazy, sometimes beautiful journeys through a momentarily becalmed psyche.

Inevitably there’s a lot to chew on, some of it utterly indigestible (hello, tiresomely zany 16-minute metal-opera The Mighty Masturbator), but even when he’s showing off he’s never anything less than fascinating.