OCEAN MACHINE - BIOMECH

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Frank Zappa of metal.

Devin Townsend is a genius. A genius! I think I have not gotten over the shock of hearing this album called Ocean Machine: Biomech, and I think he is the best thing I've heard in recent times, along with the debut of Hemin. Throughout its more than 70 minutes this album is an intense and powerful journey where we are introduced to one of the most brilliant and fertile minds of the metal in recent years.

The style? Progressive and industrial metal, with a touch of ambient and experimental music. While Ocean Machine presents a more straightforward style than their successors (where Devin will explore more elements to his music) he gives us a clear idea of the intentions of this guy. The introduction spoken Seventh Wave is just to distract the listener before the music explodes in your ears. The guitar is aggressive and strong and, perhaps, the main driver of the entire album (with the exception of ambient songs), and that is noticed from the first track.

The next song is Life, one of my favorites! I think because this is a very simple song, the kind that could be released as a single (and my love for her was increased after I quickly learned to play it on drums). Night is very dark, but not equal to the previous ones, although they are still a good song - beyond the interesting fact that Devin begins to show his extensive vocal range here (but not, it still does not scream like crazy). Hide Nowhere continues the sound explored, and is another great song in the style of the first two. It leads nicely into Sister, where the style of the album changes dramatically for the music - I mean, I love it, the way he sings "sister ..."! 3 AM follows the ideas of its predecessor, this time more calm, almost like a lullaby.

Voices in the Fan returns to the metal, and not wanting. But my favorite part is when the song ends there for his three minutes and another one begins where we hear a beautiful Gregorian choir. Greetings is another short song, like Sister and 3 AM, but rather continues in the "metal" vein, as well as the dark Regulator, where Devin again shows the power of his voice.

The next three songs are the longest: Funeral takes to engage, but as it grows so wonderful - I really love the vocals accompanied by a good low ... the song is long (8 minutes), and there are many variations in structure that make it a genuine example of a prog song (if there is a definition for this type of music genre so diverse), but it is precisely its simplicity what makes it so appealing to me. Bastard is another return to the metal, and unforgiving, and very, very heavy. Like Funeral and the next song, she does not have many changes of time and things like that - I think this is not a feature of Devin, at least not on this album - but it is powerful and I too captiving.

Now for my favorite song: The Death of Music. I guess nobody was expecting it - a 12- minute song composed of several lines, some sections and extensive vocal and simplistic, and more intriguing: a ubiquitous drum machine followed by a single bass line! It is the experimental side of Devin getting louder. And most shocking and seemingly boring that may appear is certainly the best this album. I dunno, I have a soft spot for songs such ambient. The album ends with Things Beyond Things, a very simple song (verse-chorus- verse-chorus), but ends with the cry craziest I've ever heard! As a human being on earth can scream like that? Only Devin Townsend yourself!

Thus, I conclude my thoughts on iff album. It is a masterpiece, do not doubt it a bit, and I'm excited because it is only the gateway to the wonderful world of genius that is Devin Townsend. 5 stars!

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