Ziltoid is a very important album in the chronology of Devin Townsend. One could argue that it is perhaps THE most important. There’s so much to talk about here that I barely know where to begin. So, let’s start with the background. Devin’s wife, Tracy, had just given birth to their son, leading Devin to desire some time away from touring to spend with his family. During this time, Devin decided to make a true “solo” album, more or less to prove that he could do it. On Ziltoid, Devin did damn near everything, singing nearly all vocals, playing guitar and bass, and programming drums and synths. As a fellow musician, it absolutely blows my mind how well Ziltoid works as a complete product of one brilliant, deranged mind.
Musically, we’re looking at some pretty standard Devin writing. Ziltoid is probably the second closest to SYL behind Physicist. Indeed, Ziltoidia Attaxx! and parts of Color Your World are some of the heaviest songs not credited with the SYL moniker. To mix with the heavier bits, we’ve got plenty of ambient moments. The best songs on Ziltoid work by combining the two musical ideologies in an ebb and flow that leads to some downright monumental climaxes. By Your Command, Solar Winds, and the aforementioned Color Your World peak and valley constantly, each ending with a downright crushing blow. Another musical trick that has been consistently used since its inception here is the off-beat “smashing” rhythms often associated with SYL. Planet Smasher is full of them, and they become much more rampant in the DTP.
Lyrically, Devin has gotten a bit silly in the past with songs like Ants and Vampolka, but this albums is on a whole new level of goofy. It’s not as shocking considering Devin’s first real solo album was a pop-punk satire, but I’d imagine it to be a little jarring to someone unfamiliar with Devin’s body of work. Again, it’s not like Devin’s sense of humor has been lacking in his previous efforts, it’s just much more deliberate and profound here. With the exception of Hyperdrive and The Greys, each song has at least one moment worthy of at least a chuckle. Since the story is a little confusing, and people may be easily confused, I give you: Ziltoid, the Sparknotes version.
ZTO: Ziltoid is an alien. He comes to Earth searching for the “ultimate cup of coffee.”
By Your Command: The humans deliver the coffee. Ziltoid finds it “fetid.” He prepares to attack Earth.
Ziltoidia Attaxx: Self-explanatory. Earth gets messed up pretty good.
Solar Winds: Captain Spectacular is some sort of interdimensional superhero figure. He sets out to expose Ziltoid as a nerd with the remaining few humans that haven’t been killed.
Hyperdrive: Captain Spectacular and the humans deftly avoid Ziltoid’s attack and jump into Hyperdrive to evade him. Some unknown entity sings a song about volatile relationships.
N9: Ziltoid and Captain Spectacular’s crew reach some sort of all-knowing hivemind that tells Ziltoid that he sucks and should stop being a moron.
Planet Smasher: Ziltoid is all bummed about being a moron, so he decides to destroy a planet by summoning yet another interdimensional being designed for that specific purpose. The Planet Smasher calls Ziltoid a foul pest.
Omnidimensional Creator: Ziltoid, dejected after being told off by 2 high-ranking universal beings, goes to the head of all the universe to find out his purpose in life.
Color Your World: Ziltoid begs and pleads to understand his existence. The OC abides him and tells him the truth. Ziltoid, along with everything else in the universe, is merely a puppet.
The Greys: Ziltoid gets all bummed out again and sings a song about how life kind of blows.
Tall Latte: The story turns out to be a dream of a coffee-shop worker.
Right, so obviously this is a goofy, disjointed story that seems like it has very little to do with anything. However, knowing what happened directly following the release of Ziltoid makes things very clear. There’s an almost Freudian level of hidden meanings in Ziltoid. Shortly after Ziltoid, Devin quit the music industry for a brief period, finding himself unsure of his identity in music, and feeling the need to stop using drugs and find out how to create without the help of mind-altering substances. This is an obvious parallel to Ziltoid’s plight. Ziltoid spends the whole album merely trying to do what he thinks is his “job” in the universe. And he was constantly told to stop being an idiot and leave everyone alone. There were a great number of beings that respected Ziltoid and feared him, but the majority of anyone in the Ziltoidian universe that held any form of power were dismissive towards him. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it could be hypothesized that this also relates to Devin’s relationship with the music industry and his fans. The fans obviously adore him, but the higher ups in the music business are likely not so kind.
With all of that baseless (more or less) speculation on the parallels between the Ziltoid story and Devin’s life out of the way, let’s get back to talking about the music. I like a lot of Ziltoid, but I feel like a lot of it is pretty meandering and heavy just for the sake of being heavy. Ziltoidia and N9 are both pretty innocuous 6/8 thrashers, while By Your Command and Color Your World might as well be the same song. Thankfully, it’s a damn good song, so it’s not unforgivable to have it twice. Hyperdrive and The Greys really shine as the only traditional songs on the album. They both have wonderful lyrics and lovely melodies. I hear a lot of complaints leveled at the drums, because literally everyone hates programmed drums for their lack of “human” feeling. Frankly, I think they work pretty well for an album that already sounds pretty robotic. Devin plays within the confines of the limitations, and they certainly don’t stick out.
The mid-section of Color Your World deserves extra attention. My god, what a beautiful section of music. The dancing arpeggios almost remind me of Deep Peace, and then the vocal melodies on top of the constant build is nothing short of amazing. It works fabulously within the context of Color Your World as well. The transition into it feels a little jarring, but the transition into the crushing outro seems perfectly natural. This section started a trend among “epic” moments in Devin’s music being accompanied by beautiful, soaring arpeggios.
Really though, for all the good music on Ziltoid, some of it seems a little uninspired. N9 does very little to hold my attention, and the whole ending of By Your Command (though the build-up is insanely cool) goes on way too long. Also, I feel like the story kind of trips over itself a lot, leaving me very confused as to what was actually going on before finally looking it up. Still, Ziltoid is an extremely impressive statement, being a true solo album.
I might leave a bit more time between this one and the DTP saga to allow people to catch up, and to mirror the time between the albums a little more accurately. Hold onto your ass folks, it’s all uphill from here.
Topic: Re: Devin Townsend Discography v. 'Cause there is always time... (Read 51998 times)