OCEAN MACHINE - BIOMECH

In the beginning of the Devin Townsend career, he had very different projects... Strapping Young Lad was not a band yet, but with the outcome of "City" this thing changed. He had just made another side project called Punky Bruster. And Ocean Machine was born not like his solo career, it was bor like another new band, a new project. This band/project was called Ocean Machine, and the album was called "Biomech". His second project was called Infinity, but not with his name. Only "Infinity". But when he signed with Inside Out, he adopted his own name for this two re-released albums: Devin Townsend "Ocean Machine: Biomech", and Devin Townsend "Infinity".

For all taht, I think we can't say that Ocean Machine is the first solo album by Devin Townsend, because before of it came "Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing" by SYL and the project Punky Bruster, two albums that were made almost completely by Devin.

But I think it's the first Devin's album when he started to developing his very own style. Here we can hear a very good advance of the great things to come. Pop- Metal songs with a lot of feeling like Life (with a great chorus), Night (a very catchy song, a little more in the 80's heavy way), Voices in The Fan and Funeral (the best singing of the album, I think). And we also have the strong progressive songs with a lot of capacity to evoke magic and powerful feelings like Seveth Wave (good song for open an album), Hide Nowhere (great vocal choirs, a Devin's trademark), Greetings (I love the guitar opening) and Bastard (the ending is just great). But we also have some examples of the Devin's love to the atmosferic and ambient tracks, but little inmature yet, like Sister (a song with a kind of link with "Terria") and 3AM, two songs that don't do very much for me. Nevertheless, The Death Of Music is just great, with different passages and a incredible vocal work by Devin. Finally, I think that the only "real" metal example of the album is Regulator, a fantastic song with powerful riffing with a little relation with the Strapping Young Lad sound.

So this is a fantastic album, but not a masterpiece in my opinion, because some ideas are still a little inmature, and the production isn't also very good. This album was mastered and completed in Spain, my country. But I think the production is weak sometimes, with a sound not very clear in some passages, and I miss power in the drums and bass too. But at least it's still sounding good and modern today, 9 years after the release of the album.

Conclusion: a fantastic album, very enjoyable by prog lovers, but I think that metal heads will also find very good things here, although nothing in comparision with the Strapping Young Lad's offering or others Devin's solo albums...

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