STRAPPING YOUNG LAD — Strapping Young Lad (review)

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD — Strapping Young Lad album cover Album · 2003 · Industrial Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
voila_la_scorie
Around the end of 2014, I became a very devoted fan of Devin Townsend. While his solo projects and Devin Townsend Band and Devin Townsend Project were what attracted me to his music at first, I absolutely had to have the five Strapping Young Lad albums as well.

This third album in the catalogue was released several years after the highly popular City album. For many fans of the band, City was Strapping Young Lad. The debut was just a warm up. But during the intervening years between City and this self-titled third album, Devin was exploring other styles of muscial self-expression. Naturally, when a new SYL album was announced, fans were eagerly awaiting the release. Many, however, were disappointed as it was not a City II.

While City featured an unbridled aggression, waving a big middle finger at the music industry because of Devin's frustrations with it at the time, Strapping Young Lad was a little more polished, bearing some of the trademarks of Devin's other work. Nevertheless, Devin knew what fans were expecting and many of the songs are brutal auditory assaults with Gene Holgan's pummeling double bass complementing the explosive guitar and Devin's flesh-shredding screaming. The disappointment factor for me is that many of the tracks seem to have been written and recorded with that sole purpose in mind: to be loud and brutal. Of course Devin is an individual of deep thought and sensitive as well, so I have no doubt that there was great thought put into the lyrics. "Rape Song" was intended to express rage against a rapist but was misunderstood by some as condoning rape. Poor Devin had to clear that one up.

There are moments where I feel the brutality and the actual music (the chords, the drumming, the vocal work) do come together to create memorable songs, or at least songs I want to listen again from time to time. My two favourites are "Devour" and "Force Fed", the former a short screamer with a great gang-chanting chorus and the latter bridging both the older SYL and the future sound yet to come.

Of the five SYL albums, this one ranks number four with me. It's good but doesn't have the youthful rage of City nor the intentional rage of Alien, and also doesn't have the variety or daring humour of The New Black. Three stars for being one of the less creative, less intriguing products of Devin Townsend but still good enough to smash skulls.
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