DEVIN TOWNSEND — Addicted (review)

Album · 2009 · Alternative Metal

3.5/5 · 2011-05-15
Phonebook Eater

7/10

"Addicted" is the most straight-forward, memorable album of the Project.

Devin Townsend is one of the most active, if not the most active, metal musician around. After his various projects (Devin Townsend Band, Strapping Young Lad), and his completely solo album, “Ziltoid The Omniscient”, Devin Townsend writes down about sixty songs, all of them without the use of drugs, unlike how he did for all the other previous works, and decides to divide them up into four albums, all of them having a different theme, under the name of the Devin Townsend Project. “Addicted” is the second of the saga, following KI, a quiet and atmospheric album that was intended to set the stage for the other albums.

Townsend’s eleventh studio album is supposed to be the most commercial, memorable, melodic, but at the same time the heaviest album of the four. And Devin scores on this one. “Addicted” is a perfect follow up to KI: everything is so alarmed, loud, heavy, all the prog elements are pretty much gone, compensating them we have a little more electronic, sometimes even ambient, and very Industrial sounding guitars, which is anyway a typical quality of the Canadian musician. It’s not at all estranged from Townsend’s earlier albums, but a change is definitely felt, some people think in a bad way. The most noticeable change is the huge presence of female vocals in almost every song, and they definitely are in my opinion one of the best features of “Addicted”. I’m not even going to mention the lyrics, since Devin was never a great lyricist, in fact he is one of the worst out there, extremely corny and banal, that make me cringe every time.

But whatever, Townsend can surely write a song: the opening title track is energetic and explosive like dynamite, and the weird, industrial electronics really give the music a more lush sound, just like the female vocals. “Universal In a Ball!” is the crazy song that you can find in a lot of Devin Townsend albums, definitely the heaviest one off the album. “Bend It Like Bender”, however, is one of the catchiest and most accessible songs, thanks to the disco influenced chorus, sung by the female vocals. Another great highlight is the revising of the song “Hyperdrive”, originally from the album “Ziltoid The Omniscient”, this time sung exclusively by female vocals. Other great songs are the single “Numbered”, very epic and huge sounding, thanks to the amazing wall of sound, and the catchy rock n’roll influenced “Resolve!”. They were some songs however that I just didn’t care for, at all, like the long “Awake!” or “Ih-Ah!”, which seems to be hated by many.

But overall I really enjoyed this second chapter of the Project, even though some times it was a little irritating but I’m really looking forward to listening to the third release, which supposed to be more progressive sounding.