Album review: Devin Townsend – Lightwork

Almost 30 years since he first emerged as the vocalist on guitar virtuoso Steve Vai’s Sex & Religion album, one might wonder where Devin Townsend has left to go. Both prolific and prodigious, across more than 20 albums and what feels like almost as many bands, the Canadian has traversed a universe of music, from the metal-beyond-metal heaviness of Strapping Young Lad, to the euphoria of The Devin Townsend Project’s seven-part suite of albums, a country diversion with Casualties Of Cool, a stint playing guitar in The Wildhearts, an outer-space excursion as the bonkers Ziltoid The Omniscient… His last album, 2019’s Empath, without looking backward, he also seemed to wrangle the vastness of his musical personality together into one brilliant whole.

So, where next? Pastures more “song-based” (his words), with the help of producer GGGarth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine, Biffy Clyro, Gallows), sifting through material he’d written during lockdown and fastening the best bits together properly. What you get is a record built on the more mellow end of his scale, built on angelic keys and major-key guitars, not as sprawling or out-there as the man can be, but polishing up one aspect of what he does to a bright sheen. At times it is reminiscent of Ghost in its layers-upon-layers of melody, at others, like on opener Moonpeople, there’s a curiously Muse-ish quality.

Toward the end of the record, things get heavier, like on Dimensions, where his more industrial-minded edge is allowed briefly out of the box, albeit barely registering on the SYL scale of such things. Nevertheless, it’s a welcome shade of something darker.

By this point, you’re never going to get ‘bad’ from Devin Townsend. And there’s something refreshing here in that his innate, unique attraction shines through even when he’s staying in the same spot for a moment, not skipping and jumping to the next undiscovered thing. And after so long, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Steven Wilson, Faith No More, Ghost

Lightwork is released on November 4 via Inside Out