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Review: Devin Townsend/Klone/Fixation, O2 Academy
Canadian prog-metal titan Devin Townsend has played most of Bristol’s best music venues over the years: the Bierkeller, Fleece, Hall Formerly Known as Colston, St. George’s and the Trinity Centre. One thing we’ve learned is that he’s never been afraid of bringing along top-notch support acts. This time, however, they’re a bit of an unknown quantity to most of us.
Young Norwegian quartet Fixation are another of those no-fixed-genre acts, fusing elements of metalcore, tech-metal and post-metal. They’re hampered at first by a malfunctioning microphone, which clearly proves frustrating, but recover their composure when they reach their single Ignore the Disarray.
is needed now More than ever
They certainly conjure a huge sound for a quartet and there are moments when you could swear they actually boast two guitarists. The reception is one of polite enthusiasm rather than the unrestrained moshing they were perhaps hoping for, probably because they’re not in quite the same league as their fellow countrymen Leprous
France’s contribution to metal, prog and all points in between has never been enormous. Back in the seventies, the country gave us Ange, Heldon, Pierre Moerlen’s Gong and the magnificently eccentric Magma (still going strong today). But more recently, there’s been a mini-explosion of talent across the Channel, ranging from Gojira (who recently stepped up to arena headlining status in the UK) to the under-appreciated Lazuli, via dreamy ‘blackgaze’ pioneers Alcest. Now here’s Klone, playing their very first show in Bristol.
The packed Academy is immediately won over by the confident quintet’s gorgeous, slowburning songs in which Yann Ligner’s distinctive vocals soar over epic soundscapes.
But alas, they’ve only got 40 minutes to delight us, finishing up with the terrific Yonder, which proves a perfect distillation of their sound. Come back and play a headline show soon, former Eurochums.
“I’m in an interesting mood tonight. I think it’s a good one,” quips Devin Townsend, ambling onto the stage with no great fanfare. Last time he played this venue, he served up a filmed Ziltoid intro and a continuous barrage of projections. Tonight, the stage is bare, but for the odd octopus (in keeping with the artwork of current album Lightwork), and the lighting basic if effective. What’s more, he’s billed simply as Devin Townsend. The Devin Townsend Band and Devin Townsend Project are seemingly no more.
But whatever he chooses to call it, he’s certainly assembled a crack band for this tour, featuring formidable former Frank Zappa sidekick Mike Keneally on keyboards and additional guitar. We last saw him onstage in Bristol with Joe Satriani at the Hall Formerly Known as Colston back in 2018. The line-up is completed by two Brits, underlining Heavy Devy’s longstanding affinity with the UK: bassist James Leach and versatile journeyman drummer Darby Todd.
They open with Lightworker, one of just four tracks from Lightwork aired tonight – an unusually spiritual song about, and sampling the voice of, the late Ram Dass, who’s better known to students of the ’60s US counterculture movement as Richard Alpert. Setting the tone for the evening, that’s followed by the crowd-pleasing Kingdom, which gets everybody bellowing along.
A roadie brings on an octopus theremin for Dimension, which so delights Devin that he announces he’s going to make weird noises with it for the next five minutes. Then there’s a rare outing for The Fluke from the Terria album and another crowd-pleaser in the form of that quintessential DT anthem Deadhead.
Seven weeks into this lengthy tour, it’s a well-drilled show, though Devin denies repeated requests for Why? on the grounds that he’s suffering from a sinus infection, which has a constant stream of roadies delivering liquid medicaments. One of them even pauses to tie his employer’s shoelaces. He does, however, perform a great Spirits Will Collide, also from the splendidly overblown Empath album, immediately after that weird Lightwork wild card, Heartbreaker (“We’re about to lose half the audience for the next few minutes,” he announces by way of introduction). And his voice sounds just fine on Deep Peace, which features a great piano solo by Keneally.
There are more crowd-pleasers to close the show: Truth and Bad Devil, during which Devin takes the opportunity to criticise the audience’s poor dancing. The band then pretend to walk off (“We’ve got to do the thing . . .”) before returning for . . . something completely unexpected.
“Shall we do it then?” asks the ringmaster of his fellow musicians. And indeed they do, delighting the audience with impromptu rendition of Why?, which seemed to have been retired quite early on this tour. The encore proper begins with the mellow Call of the Void, showcasing Devin’s pop sensibility, which should have been a huge global hit.
There’s always a portion of his audience that yearns for Devin to return to his loud, aggressive, self-destructive youth, and they’re rewarded with the closing Love? by his former band Strapping Young Lad. And, yes, Mr. Keneally proves equally adept at extreme metal as he does at everything else.
All pix by Mike Evans
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: March 2023
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