"I am the coming of a new age
Stained we still stand tall
I am the coming of a new age
And I will never fall
I bear the questions of a new time
Seen but never heard
I've seen the comings of a new time, get ready...
'Cause here it comes!"
Strapping Young Lad started as a one-man solo project by Devin Townsend, a mentally unbalanced man with anger issues, and bipolar tendencies. They're best described as Industrial metal/extreme metal/heavy metal/black metal/death metal/the angriest music you will ever friggin' hear. Devin made this, and all SYL albums out of pure anger. If you feel angry, put some SYL on, it's amazing.
But just who exactly is Devin Townsend? In a few words, he's one of the most important musicians of all time. He may not show the extent of his creativity with SYL, but he's one of the most creative musicians I have ever found. He can make the heaviest music that's in your face, the most calming music that would sound perfect in family slideshows, the catchiest pop-metal music you can dance to, or awesome and hilarious progressive metal concept album masterpieces.
He was first the lead vocalist on a Steve Vai album called 'Sex & Religion', which was rather mediocre, but Devin's vocals were good. He later decided he wanted to start releasing his own albums after being in the music industry and realizing how terrible it was, he wanted to vent all of this anger he had towards the world for things he experienced in his life, but he didn't want to release any albums under his name out of fear of being labeled as "that guy who sang for Steve Vai" instead of a serious musician.And man, he's angry on this album, for an example, see here:
"I worked for you fucking bastards
I worked for your fucking lies
I went and pissed away too many fucking opportunities
To try and make you fuckers feel right
And I fucking hate you...."
Intense hatred that's been burning up inside of him since he was a child. He's ready to let it all out.
Devin plays guitar, sings, screams, and I think also might play bass and keyboards on this album, but I can't look it up right now. He brought in a few session musicians to do drums.
Now let's get onto the actual music! What can you expect here? Pure anger condensed into music.
Lots of industrial influence is found here, and it's just really heavy as a really heavy thing. Industrial metal is mainly what this album is, with influences from black metal and death metal, and of course, as SYL was later labeled as (and I don't know if this is even a real genre) 'extreme metal'.
So what's the problem here? As Devin himself has said, and I don't entirely agree with him on this, he said something along the lines of "This is a terrible album with only two great songs", and while I disagree in the way that I think there's definitely more than two, he's right, some of the songs on here could be infinitely better had they been recorded in a later point in his life, due to some small production errors, how he could've built on them, and the such.
Don't get me wrong, some great songs are on here, like the one I quoted up there, 'S.Y.L' which is awesome, but while they aren't bad, there are songs on here that aren't particularly good. I like it more than Devin himself likes it, anyway.
One thing I do like, though, is how friggin' creepy this album is at some points, and somewhat funny in other moments such as 'Satan's Ice Cream Truck'. And also the pure insanity in some tracks like 'Happy Camper (Carpe B.U.M.)' make you wonder just what exactly is going on in Devin's mind... Maybe he's smarter than us all, or he's one inch away from actually committing murder.
Overall, I wanna give this a 6/10. Devin's great, and while some tracks don't really hit me here, the ones that do are really worth checking out if you like metal.
And yes, it really is as heavy as a really heavy thing.
Recommended Track(s): S.Y.L. , In the Rainy Season, Cod Metal Thing
