Devin Townsend Project - Epicloud

Published September 26 2012

*=Staff's pick	Effervescent! True North Lucky Animals Liberation* Where We Belong Save Our Now Kingdom Divine Grace More! Lessons Hold On* Angel

Genre	Metal	D. Townsend/A. van Giersbergen	Vocals
Tracks	13	Devin Townsend	Guitar
Running time	50 Min.	Dave Young	Guitar
Label	Inside Out Music	Mike Young	Bass
Release	24 September 2012	Ryan Van Poederooyen	Drums
Country	USA	Devin Townsend	Keyboard
Producer	Devin Townsend
Similar artists	---

Epicloud shows a blend of styles. There's fragments of disco, pop rhythms, hard rock, an ounce of thrash and parts with heavy metal. It feels like I could go on forever with this list, but to catch your interest, I certainly won't. Its epicness and its diversity sometimes makes me sick, as it has no clear or straight line to follow and you don't know what to expect next. On the other hand, the distance to reason makes it somehow pretty worth listening to. This is of course no major news to the fan and to people who are familiar with his past work, as Mr. Townsend is rather well known for his variety in music.

With one male and one female vocalist, it builds up an even more bombastic, vivid and colorful touch. The Dutch and former The Gathering singer Anneke van Giersbergen gets a chance to prove that she has a pretty wide range and does not just function as a single tone vocalist doing the more beautiful parts, as the metal scene is well known for when female singers are present. Usually their duties are used more as a backup, singing the ballads and lurking somewhere deep in the mix. On a couple of songs though, she's clearly number two and to be a bit grumpy, I'm not sure I dig the parts where she sings like a ten year old school girl.

Many songs makes me smile, like the happy and uplifting Liberation as well as Hold On; a beautiful ballad with an exploding chorus. A few tracks, or rather parts of those tracks, are utter crap. Save Our Now feels inept with its clear vibes of twenty-five year old pop, but then again, this is what makes Townsend's music to what it is. Fifty minutes of this epic and monumental variation seems a bit long, as it sometimes has a wearisome effect, but you shouldn't take too much notice of my complaints anyway, as this record actually is pretty good when it comes to the final result. Then how to categorize this type of music? Well, I sure as hell don't know, so I'll take the easy way out. Let's file it under Metal.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	9	6	7	6

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe