TERRIA

A fan on Devin's message board says it best. Robvondoom writes, [F]or me, Dev is the only artist I've found to mix the subtleties of every emotion. I can't be satisfied with happy, sad, angry, dark or whatever. With Dev you can feel happiness with a hint of regret. Fear with a mocking tone? Confusion, melancholy, triumph, dissatisfaction and on and on. It's all there in different degrees. And it's all beautiful man.

For me, TERRIA is the epitome of Townsend's characteristic emotional ambivalence. Like the album title would suggest, TERRIA offers the entire spectrum of natural experience: rage, despair, hope, nihilism. I can honestly say that I've never heard a piece of musical work that so subtly plays with these emotions. As the reviewer above probably recognized, Townsend in this album more than any other mixes sophisticated but ruggedly distorted guitar riffs with beautiful vocal harmonies, downtrodden melodies with hopeful keys, idealism with a splash of sarcasm. This is Townsend's most mature work, and I doubt it can ever be topped. TERRIA resides in a time and space all its own, and for this reason it will doubtless affect listeners for years to come.

When considering whether to label an album a masterpiece, many ask themselves whether the piece is one of their desert island picks -- one of those treasures that, if stranded on a desert island with only so much room for personal belongings, would most certainly have to find a place somewhere underneath the makeshift tent. For me, TERRIA is not only a desert island album. It is the desert island experience, itself. The hellish riff of Earth Day, its rage spilling out of my veins as I beat the sand and scream to the sky in betrayed disbelief at my ill-deserved abandonment. The brutal honesty of Nobody's Here inside that rickety tent, its imperative of It's alright to cry finding someone with no other choice, the tears not even allowed any sort of temporary testament by the thirsty matted sand at my feet. The chiming solo in Deep Peace as I find myself back outside, laying underneath the same sky, now turned black but pierced by millions of sparkling diamonds shooting off the waves.

To hear TERRIA is to experience something. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint, but that's precisely the point.