Review: Devin Townsend Project, O2 Academy

It’s axiomatic that to find the most interesting, creative and innovative music, you have to look beyond the dull mainstream. But it kind of restores your faith in human nature that a triple bill of uncompromising prog-metal, tech-metal and blackjazz should sell out the Academy.

Blackjazz? “We started out 14 years ago as an acoustic jazz quartet,” says Jorgen Munkeby of Norway’s Shining. “Today we play something a little bit . . . different.” He’s not kidding. Their bracing blend of free jazz and avant-metal, replete with much honking saxophone by Munkeby himself, goes down much better with this audience than it did with the Kreator/Arch Enemy thrash crowd back in December. They’ll be back for a well-deserved headlining tour in the Autumn.

“Periphery?” sniffed your correspondent’s metal purist nephew. “They’re a poppier Meshuggah.” He’s got a point. Spencer Sotelo’s big, clean choruses veer dangerously into nu-metal territory on occasion. But no nu-metal act ever boasted the tech-metal skills of Periphery, who trade in complex polyrhythms and twisted melodies. Under the guidance of ace guitarist Misha Mansoor, they’ve transcended the djent pigeonhole with Juggernaut: Alpha and Juggernaut: Omega (two lengthy albums with one overarching concept, released simultaneously – eat yer hearts out Yes and ELP) to move into a more purely progressive realm. They’ll continue to divide audiences, but there’s no denying their growing popularity.

Playing the Academy as one of a handful of shows prior to his long-sold-out Royal Albert Hall blowout, bewilderingly prolific Devin Townsend is one of those rare artists in the Zappa/Rundgren mould who can do just about anything – from extreme metal to blissed-out ambient music, via daft concept albums about a space alien searching for the perfect cup of coffee (he’s done two of those) – and take his loyal audience with him. Hell, he recently put out a country album, just because he can. 

Devin and his estimable Project finally arrive after a long and frankly rather indulgent filmed Ziltoid (the coffee-loving alien) intro. He claims to have a voice like Marge Simpson thanks to a bout of the flu, though nobody would have noticed if he hadn’t mentioned it. The nerdular slap-headed polymath is on playful form, warning that we’ll be expected to do some “stupid heavy metal shit” by way of audience participation and having much fun at the expense of traditional rabble-rousing gambits. “Jump up muthafuckers!” he smirks. “Or don’t jump if you don’t want to. That is also an option.” Comedy pause. “Thank you, sir, for jumping up.”

Opening with Truth and Deathray, he then serves up a surprise. Having frequently opined that he’s way too old to play that angry and aggressive Strapping Young Lad stuff anymore, Devin delivers Namaste – which isn’t actually a SYL song, but might as well be – giving Ryan Van Poederooyen an opportunity to demonstrate his phenomenal talents in the Gene Hoglan drumseat. The barrage of video screen imagery almost rivals that of a Hawkwind show, and really scores with a marching robot sequence synchronised to the splendid, weirdly operatic March of the Poozers, which also showcases Devin’s distinctive and relentless post-Spector wall of sound technique.

Another left turn brings the earwormy Lucky Animals, with Shining’s Munkeby reappearing in a chimp mask to spunk sax all over it. We’re even cajoled into making fools of ourselves by waving jazz hands during the chorus. “If you’re at a prog-metal gig, you’re a nerd – get over it,” asserts Devin, not unreasonably. All his self-deprecation can’t detract from the sheer loveliness of first encore Ih-Ah!, the third song from 2009’s Addicted in tonight’s set. As other reviewers have observed, this would be a massive chart hit in an alternative universe where great songwriting alone determined such things. But we can’t be sent home from a DTP show feeling mellow, so the sheer adrenaline rush of Kingdom proves a fitting conclusion to another masterclass from the crazed Canuck genius.