DEVIN TOWNSEND — Terria (review)

Album · 2001 · Progressive Metal

3/5 · 2021-08-14
lukretion

Terria marks a strong return to form for Devin Townsend after the pas faux of Physicist, an album that many today consider one of the low points in the Canadian artist’s discography. With Terria, Devin leaves aside the asphyxiating heavy parenthesis of his previous album, and continues exploring instead the mellow psychedelic atmospheres of Ocean Machine: Biomech, to the point that Terria is often viewed as the natural continuation of that album. There are still occasional metallic outbursts that hark back to Infinity and Physicist, but these are not a dominant element on Terria and are mostly used as a contrast to the more relaxed parts rather than as a leading component of the record. Instead, Terria is an album dominated by melody and dreamy, almost psychedelic, undercurrents.

Swathes of keyboards and sound loops (played by Devin and Jamie Meyer, who had toured with Strapping Young Lad in previous years) are used to create the lulling mood of the album, alongside the usual wall of layered distorted guitars. Gene Hoglan and Craig McFarland form an exceptional rhythm section, powerful and subtle at the same time. McFarland’s fretless bass is often pushed up in the excellent mix and its pulse drives the songs beautifully. Devin also plays a few melodic guitar leads and solos (“Deep Peace”, “Nobody’s Here”, “Stagnant”), which contribute to give the album a more distinct melodic edge compared to Infinity and Physicist. Devin’s vocals are excellent as usual, varying between clean parts, falsettos and screamed vocals. His backing vocals and choral arrangements are also top-notch.

The album is written as a sort of musical stream of consciousness, with each song bleeding seamlessly into the next, and even the album’s lyrics written as a unique piece of text, without separation or solution of continuity between songs. For this reason, Terria is a highly immersive album that invites the listener to embark on a sprawling 71 minutes trip and that works best when listened as a whole piece of music. Truth be told, Terria starts in a rather difficult way, with “Mountain” being perhaps the heaviest and most angular song of the album, linking the record back to Infinity. It’s not a very accessible start of the album, which made me fear for the worst when I first listened to it (“God not another Physicist, please!”).

Things start to pick up on “Earth Day”, which is simply the best song of the album and it is worth alone the price of the record. It is a massive, 9-minute long, incredibly dynamic composition that keeps moving between frenzied sonic assaults and soothing melodies. Throw in the mix exhilarating lyrics, massive vocal arrangements and some of the most memorable melodies of the album, and you have one of the best pieces of music that Devin has ever written. The following two songs, “Deep Peace” and “Canada”, are the other highlights of the record. Mellower and more expansive, they do not have the tension and density of “Earth Day”, but contain some great guitar work and excellent vocal melodies.

From there on Terria nose dives a little, embarking on a series of mellow, trippy songs that carry strong echoes of Pink Floyd as well as contemporary alternative pop/rock. I am not very fond of any of the songs on the second half of the record. They are not bad by any stretch of imagination, but I find them a tad too overindulgent and dragging. They simply do not manage to recreate the strong musical high of tracks like “Earth Day”, “Deep Peace” and “Canada”. Moreover, these songs are perhaps a bit too obvious in their influences which makes them sound slightly derivative.

For this reason, I tend to consider Terria as a slightly inferior album compared to its predecessors, Ocean Machine: Biomech and Infinity, simply because the episodes of sheer musical genius and brilliance are more frequent on those two earlier records than on this one. It is nevertheless vastly superior to Physicist and stands tall in Devin’s overall discography, so if you are into his music you should definitely get this. It is probably also an album to recommend to beginners, as Terria contains some of Devin’s most accessible material and so it could be a suitable gateway to get into his musical universe.