OCEAN MACHINE - BIOMECH

Devin Townsend is a musical genius in every sense of the word as far as I'm concerned. I've never heard anyone else in the metal world be able to make music that's so heavy but also so atmospheric. And I also love the spacey effect that he manages to bring in as well. Be it Strapping Young Lad, The Devin Townsend Band, or his solo work, Heavy Devy always brings so much creativity and life into his work. I could probably recommend at least one of his albums to every type of music fan out there. He's really got a wide variety of music out there.

Alright, now that I'm done gushing over him, let's take a look at his first solo album. Townsend released this after the first two Strapping Young Lad albums and the Cooked on Phonics album were already under his belt. The music is very serene and atmospheric, almost like the cover suggests, except with lots of heaviness and crunchy riffs added here and there. Although there is a good mix of songs present on OM - B. On one hand, you have riff-driven songs like the opener, "Seventh Wave", and then the next moment you have the pop-metal (if there was such a term) presented in "Life". Throw in a few epics at the end of the album in "Bastard" and "The Death of Music" and you've got an album that's as experimental as progressive metal and Devy can bring but diversified in style.

There are only two things that keep me from calling this album a masterpiece. The first is that I wish the songs "Sister", "3 A.M.", and "Greetings" hadn't been so close to each other on the album. Each of the 3 songs is short enough that they feel more like long transitions than actual songs to me. The second is that the epics feel like they take too long to build for me, and I think Townsend went on to make better longer songs later in his career. For some reason my mind tends to wander on both the songs sometimes, especially on the intro for "The Death of Music". But all in all, this is a fantastic record by Townsend. Although everything I've heard from him so far sounds amazing to me. 4 stars for a fantastic solo debut. I'd recommend this to those who like their metal to have a lot of personality, depth, and creativity to it. This is a good place to start with the solo career of Devin Townsend.