THE DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND: ACCELERATED EVOLUTION

I might as well state my opinion straight away - great album. The songs are excellent, and consistently good, too. Perhaps not explosively creative or progressive but it's not like they are totally predictable, either - it's still Devin Townsend.

If you felt technical, you could plot the tracks on some graph, stating their "greatness". If you did, it would look like a valley - the start and the end of the album are best, with a noticeable trough in the middle where they are not quite as great. Depth Charge is awesome, dark, brooding and heavy, and sets a good standard for the album. The highlight on this track has to be the vocals - "Who's behind the door? I'M BEHIND THE DOOR!" - but the intense intro is very good too. Storm is at a similar quality level. It's shorter, a bit more mellow (calm verses, more 'serious' lyrics), but it's still heavy. Fantastic chorus here, too, which is given incredible energy at the end with some shouty parts.

However, we do come to the aforementioned valley, starting with Random Analysis. It's not that the track does anything wrong, it's just it does less right than the other two. The lyrics are imaginative and badass but not as badass as before. However, this track does have a great bridge section. Deadhead looks promising, being longer, but it may be my least favourite. The riff is great, and the whole track is much slower than the rest of the album. It finds its place well, it just doesn't do much when it gets there. The verses roll past, along with the choruses, into the bridge, but the instrumental section fails to do much. A proper solo would have brought the song up a bit more, and whilst there is a short thrash of the high notes during a break, it's not that great. However, the vocals at the end are very well done.

Suicide is still part of the valley, but it could be compared to Storm - it's more evil, and doesn't have the same mood as Storm, but it's slower and generally quieter, with parts that don't have guitar (!), simply drums and vocals. Speaking of drums, they're great on this album. I'd say something about the bassist but I have yet to hear him on here, except maybe parts of this track. Anyway, Suicide has one thing most of the other tracks don't - a solo, and an awesome one. Devin, as usual, makes this one worthwhile and interesting, and fairly lengthy. There's a great moment where everything stops for half a bar just to let a guitar note ring - fantastic. The solo really brings up the finale too.

Traveller continues the increasing curve. It starts with drums and adds a guitar riff later. This riff feels happier and more epic than most of the other riffs so far - on the major end of the minor scale, I guess. The vocals fit well enough, being more uplifting. The rest fo the track is fairly simple and straight forwards, but the chorus is awesome. On these kinda songs, Devin's skill at writing lyrics and melodies really shows - "But I've got to face it in another way...". The track retains a progessive element with a key change and mood change in the middle, suddenly becoming angry and dark, but then cheerfully returning to the main riff to end.

Away is, hands down, the most proggy song here, since it doesn't really follow the standard structure. It's more of a guitar solo than anything else, with Opeth-like acoustic sections in between the slow, sweeping, epic guitar sections. Some of the heavy bits do get more intense, and it's not all a solo, but it is very guitar oriented, rather than vocally led. It gives the album a great instrumental balance. Sunday Afternoon follows it, and is a lot like Storm or Traveller in mood. "Sunday" is the right word, as it feels very laid back and relaxed in comparison to the others. Well, in comparison, it still gets quite intense. The lyrics aren't quite as memorable than the others but the melodies are great. There's also more keyboard here - it's everywhere on the album and adds to the guitar sound well. The mixing is spot on, as usual.

Slow Me Down is awesome, my favourite song this summer. Yeah, it's a pop esque song. It's not blandly straightforwards, the middle changes, but yeah, at best it is Devin doing pop. And it's great, heavy yet happy, with some less than ordinary lyrics. Also, the guitar here is perfect. It doesn't waste a moment of time, either.

So where did the prog go? Well, if you're looking for prog in the normal sense of the word, this album hasn't got too much. Almost all the songs are just standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge/solo-chorus affairs, save Away. But the songs are still imaginative in the usual Townsend way. It's definitely him behind the steering wheel here.

Better than Terria? Maybe. It's more consistent than Terria, definitely. It's not no empty spaces like the second half of "The Fluke" to let the listener get bored, and this is more of a standard, "cut out the crap", "let's rock" affair. Any sensible metal fant would enjoy this, and any prog metal fan should too.