Devin Townsend - Ziltoid the Omniscient. ....Sci-fi Metal? inDEED!

I, like many others, was naturally disappointed when I heard of Devin Townsend's decision to disband Strapping Young Lad and the Devin Townsend Band and retreat to the backwoods of Canada, away from touring and public life to become a hermit (albeit a hermit who constantly ships out amazing new music). However, his new release "Ziltoid the Omniscient" definitely makes up for any disappointment I felt before, being in my opinion, his best release since the Devin Townsend Band's "Accelerated Evolution". In fact, this album takes quite a lot of influence from the DTB as well as Strapping, creating a truly diverse album with everything from clean, rubato guitars with soaring vocal harmonies ("Solar Winds"), to brutal, downtuned guitars, chugging in true Strapping style ("Ziltoidia Attaxx!"), of course with Devin's innate humor thrown in as well. This album takes all of Devin Townsend's musical styles and packs them together to form this epic metal opus. A good way to describe how Dev approached this album was to take the sheer brutality, intensity, and anger of Strapping Young Lad and channel it into creating eccentric, epic sci fi chops, complete with the melodic style of DTB.

Being a huge Stargate SG-1 and sci-fi nerd in general, my prayers for a truly epic Sci-fi metal record have been answered! Although a constant thread of trademarked Devin Townsend comedy is maintained throughout (i mean, look at the title!), this album is filled with coffee swilling, human slaying, planet smashing, all knowing alien ownage. The plot centers around the 4th dimensional alien "Ziltoid the Omniscient" and his conquest of Earth and it's finest black coffee. which he needs to bend time (established in "ZTO", and "Ziltoidia Attaxx!"). "Captain Spectacular" leads the humans in the fight against Ziltoid. This album is so metal that Ziltoid could use it as fuel to bend time, no problem, screw the perfect coffee beans.

The highlight of this album for me is without a doubt "Solar Winds", the 9 and a half minute long fourth track of Devin's sci-fi opus. At the start, an entertaining voice over from Devin reveals Captain Spectacular's ingenious plan to "expose Ziltoid for what he really is.......a NERD!" We are then brought onto the deck of Spectacular's ship, as the Captain "introspectively gazes out of his starship window, on the way to the 4th dimensional Nebuloan 9." What follows is a surprisingly solemn, melodic intro, replete with chiming, atmospheric guitars, godly sounding vocal harmonies, and very cool lyrics. Devin really flaunts his talent as a vocalist on this track, especially when the song starts to get heavy, his vocals taking the lead melodic role over the slightly dissonant guitar line, contrasting with it very well. This contrast is the essence of this album, taking the best parts of Strapping and DTB and fusing them together to create something totally new.

The one disappointment of this record is its mediocre ending, which reveals that the entire story was merely a daydream of some slacker working at a coffee shop. Although this has some funny ties to the plot of the album, it is so abrupt that it gives off the impression that Dev needed to end it quickly. I was looking forward to a grand finale to tie up the story, and the ending was a bit of a letdown. However, this only slightly taints the sheer awesomeness of this album (nothing is perfect, after all), and if he maintains his prolific creativity, I think that we can expect great things from Devin Townsend in the future.

9.5/10

-Jack Deming

Revjoo of Lumsk's latest album, Det Vilde Kor!

Being a Lumsk fan ever since i heard their first release "Aasmund Fregdegjaevar" 2 years ago, this album was a huge refresher for me. I learned that Lumsk is one of the few bands who can progress away from their original style and still make pure, genuinely listenable albums that do not affect their fans views of them (examples of bands who failed at this are Children of Bodom and In Flames). Lumsk started to progress away from their original Aasmund style (made up of very exotic and folky sounding songs, with fiddle and heavy guitars added) on their 2005 album Troll, and they take it even farther on their third release, Det Vilde Kor. The Norwegian folk metal sextet downplays their admittedly interesting exotic tonal ideas for much more melodic and rhythmic sounding tunes that are very, VERY hard to get tired of. However, "Svend Herlufsens Ord, Del III Jeg Har Det", is a definite throwback to Lumsk's original style on Aasmund that many old fans will enjoy all the same. This is a very down tempo album, so if you're looking for bowel rumbling metal with guitars tuned to B playing at 250 bpm in 17/8 time, sorry, but you might want to look somewhere else. Lumsk is quite eclectic, bringing in influences from Norwegian folk music, metal, and most importantly on this release, Norwegian poetry. Det Vilde Kor ("The Wild Choir") is a collection of poetry by the celebrated Norwegian poet Knut Hamsun, and Lumsk pays tribute to him by taking his verses and using them as lyrics. This makes for gorgeous sounding lyrics, with a flowing, rhythmic feel to them, indeed very poetic and nice to listen to. I must say, its a nice change from constantly hearing cliche lyrics by other bands that i listen to about THE POWER! THE MIGHT AND THE STEEEEEEEEEEL!!! *fist pump*, or "MUTILATING THE SOULS OF THE DAMMNED *grunt* *shakes hair*. I've always been interested in the Norwegian language, and this album is filled with classic poems in the tongue, so it's very interesting in that respect as well. The highlight of the album for me is "Om Hundrede Aar Er Alting Glemt". This is hands down one of THE most profoundly beautiful songs I've ever heard. My first listen of this song quickly turned into my first several listens, because i hit repeat about 8 or 9 times before i could bring myself to move on to the next track. Its that good. The title translates to "In One Hundred Years, Everything is Forgotten," which fits the mood of the song well. Although relatively simple and slow in structure, this song elicits a feeling that i cannot put it into words, but it becomes evident when one listens to it. Om Hundrede is a duet with Stine Mari Langstrand and another male vocalist, who, while not as skilled vocally, adds a great contrast to Stine's vocals (be sure to check out the video to this as well!). My other favorites included "Godnat Herinde", a beautiful, lullaby like song, and Diset Kvæld", an interesting and catchy romp in an odd time signature. "Om Hundrede" along with 11 other songs together make up what is in my opinion, Lumsk's greatest release to date, and I sincerely hope that i am as blown away by their next release as i was by this!



9/10
-Jack Deming