2. Devin Townsend – “Empath”

I have overused the word Genius in this list. I have given the title to every bunch of Nordic socially inept corpse painted weirdos, who decide to make less noisy Black Metal. Devin Townsend is the real deal, truly an utter genius and probably one of the most important figures in modern Metal. A child prodigy, he was plucked from obscurity by Stevie Vai to be the lead vocalist on his Vai vanity project. Suddenly this reclusive young lad from Canada was touring the world and playing to vast audiences. His initial experiences of the music industry made him determined to plough his own furrow. So rather than take up offers to join bands and become part of existing collaborations, he instead created his own unique extreme Metal project “Strapping Lad” and also prolifically chucked out solo material. By the mid-noughties the rock and roll lifestyle was playing hell with his bipolar condition and he went into hibernation.

Come the start of this decade he remerged from self-imposed isolation, sober, spiritually focused and brimming with self-assurance. Reassembling as the Devin Townsend Project (DTP) he seemed to be omnipresent, making up for five years of exile by being every-bloody-where. There were albums every year, a constant round of tours, festival slots, special shows, spoken word performances and acoustic gigs. Without much fanfare Devin became Metal’s very own renaissance man.

With concern that DTP was becoming caught in a rut of mid table Prog Metal (his term not mine), he called time on the band in early 2018 and disappeared into his custom built studio. “Empath” is the result and it is an utterly glorious mismatch of every genre under the sun. Everything that Devin has ever put his hand to is in some way or form referenced here. This is overblown, transcendental and utterly bonkers. This much alteration and style jumping should not work, but bloody hell, it does. You get swept up in the majestic splendour of the whole thing. The fluctuating musical forms dance across your senses and it is intoxicating in its complexity and also its unashamed ambition. There is simply nothing that has ever sounded like this. Devin has created a piece of unique beauty. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.