DEVIN TOWNSEND

Having got his first break singing on Steve Vai’s 1993 album Sex & Religion, Townsend then went down his own, gleefully zig-zagging path. The Devin Townsend Project’s stock-in-trade is seriously oblique, oddball music, employing symphonic, thrash and prog metal, with avant-garde pop, ambient, psychedelic and orchestral elements in the mix too. His guitar style is extremely adaptable: swathes of fat, multi-tracked guitars make for a massive sound. He’s got the widdle when needed, but can spin melodic lines, and can give it some boom-chicka alt.country too.

Maybe he’s just too tough to pin down to get on to the same lists as nailed-on guitar gods, or perhaps his whole sci-fi schtick’s just too off-the-wall and zany for most. But then unique voices are often drowned out by the static of many, lesser ones.

A remarkable guitarist, a singular talent. GM

Listen to this: Stormbending (Devin Townsend Project, Transition, 2016)