BEHOLD
ONE OF THE MOST BOMBASTIC, OVERWHELMING, CONFUSING AND MENTAL ALBUMS EVER MADE
THE GLORIOUS TENYes indeed, at number 6, there's that beast under the name of
DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECTDECONSTRUCTIONExtremely overwhelming metal, 2011
Now, what the hell is this album. No, seriously, what the hell is it?
Is it trying to make a statement, or is it just messing with us? Do we have to take it seriously, or just have a good laugh at it?
But these are not the questions. The real questions are:
What are we? Where are we from? What's the meaning of life? Is it possible to overcome certain powerful feelings?
All those answers, my good friends, are contained in this... this.. this THING called Deconstruction.
After a poppy metal record, Devin, in pure Devy fashion, decides to give us the complete opposite of metal music, and he delivered in 2011 this sound assault, this mind-blowing, this headache-inducing masterpiece.
One could say that listening to Deconstruction for the first time is like losing your virginity, you feel that you like it, but it's also pretty painful, but once you do it, you'll always come back to it. That's how it went with me.
The first Devy song I've ever listened was the title-track of this album, and fuck, I hated it to death. It was too much. Then Ultimetalhead decides to do the discography thread, and once I got to this album, I was very arfraid, but I listened to it. These are my thoughts throughout the various sessions:
First time: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS I DON'T EVEN BOOM NOPE NEVER AGAIN
Second time: THAT'S A REALLY COOL MELODY BUT STILL DAFUQ
Third time: wow these lyrics are mindblowing, and the music is starting to make sense
Fourth time: SMOKE THAT FUCKING WEEEEEEDBOY DRINKTHAWINE
So yep. Decon is truly a grower.
As I've already said, this album is extremely complex in terms of music: the structures of the songs are pure stream of consciousness, there aren't any 'choruses' or 'verses' (well, except two tracks) - there are just little pieces.
The heaviness collaborates really well with the choir and the orchestra, and everything creates this atmosphere of chaos and confusion.
Lyrically, Deconstruction deals with Devin trying to defeat his Strapping counter-part, and it's told with a story of a guy who starts doing drugs and alcohol, and also pursuits the meaning of life, which as most of us know is
SPOILER ALERT a cheeseburger. Holy shit, Devin. Yes: the message is "there is no message". Truly a great climax. And also: this is one hell of quotable album. There are plenty of deservful lyrics that need to be quoted. No wonder, look at my user message
Decon starts quietly with
Praise The Lowered, which is a pretty calm song, I really love the vocal melodies. In this song the character is pride of his sobriety but suddently realizes that he wants to lose
EVERYTHING THAT'S POLICING US and so he starts to do drugs and becomes an alcoholic. This is one of my favorites Devy tracks, in terms of vocal performance, and that's because here in this song, Dev uses both his angelic voice, operatic voice and scream really well. The song of course grows and grows and it explodes at the end, only to segue into a very dynamic track called
Stand. Stand is one of my favorites, and it strongly reminds me of Ki. The song is like a rollercoaster, at times it's reeeeally low, at times it's super heavy, and it features Mikeal Akerfeldt vocals. Yeah, a thing that makes Decon so special is the guests spots: there's one in every song and they're all stellar. Lyrically, this song is about the first of many internal conflicts that our character has throughout the album, and also how he begins to search "the truth" (I interpret this pursuit as a distraction to him).
Juular, the third track, is also really cool and contains beastly drumming by Dirk Verbeuren. This is the most "classicly-written" song in the album, it has verses and choruses and Devin screams like a motherfucker in this one. The whole song is in this halloween-ish vibe, and it's really cool. This feautres Ihsahn on vocals, he sings the chorus, and man is that one hell of a chorus. The lyrics in the song are about another internal conlfict in the character's mind.
Then track four begins and oh God is that heavy.
Planet Of The Apes is my favorite piece from this album, and it's easily one of my top 10 songs of all time. It's really hard to describe this song, as it's 12 minutes long and it has a lot of moods and atmospheres but I can say one thing: HEAVY RIFFS, BEASTLY DRUMMING, GREAT VOCAL MELODIES AND CHOIR. Tommy from Between The Buried And Me sings on this track, and even if they're not my cup of tea, I enjoy the hell out of this voice. This song is about our protagonist's life in terms of job and family relationship. He's presumably a musician and he doesn't want to sell out, as he
STAYS HEAVY FOR HIS GOD. Words cannot describe the grandiosity of POTA.
The album goes on with
Sumeria which is another favorite of mine, I really enjoy both the riffs and the vocal melodies, but especially the riffs. Very Gojira-like song. And infact, Joe Duplantier sings in it!
I love how the guy's voice is both extremely furious but so melodic. In this song our character realizes that if he keeps behaving this way, he will be hated forever. But he doesn't care and he carries on.
Ok. Now. The most ridicolous of tracks is next. A 16 minute journey that goes from dramatic slow operatic vibes, to triplets galore, to house/dance stuff, straight metal and FUCKING PARADE MUSIC.
The Mighty Masturbator, ladies and gentlemen. Listen to this song, be blown away. With lyrics dealing with the creative process of the protagonist, and possibly one of his concerts, our main character starts to realize what he has done with himself, but his bad-self takes over him and everything goes completely nuts.
Pandemic is a short and brutal track, featuring Floor Jansen on soprano vocals, and Dirk playing blast beats all over the place. Jesus Christ, that guy is a beast. In Pandemic the guy has another internal conflict, and he falls deeper into the hole of drugs and alcohol. At this point he's completely obsessed about finding the true nature of mankind, and he goes to hell.
Deconstruction, the title-track, the climax of the record, is a mess. There's not a single stable rythm, everything changes and moves in question of seconds. And the cheesburger bit? What can I say. Godly track. So yeah, our main guy goes to the devil and he ORDERS him (arrogance) to show him the meaning of life: a cheesburger. Meaning that there's no meaning. He realizes what he's done, and how everything was vane, and in a beautiful climax, he apologizes to everybody.
The final song,
Poltergeist, is as close to Strapping Young Lad as we can get with Devin's solo stuff. The song is mean, catchy in a way, furious and thrasy. This is about the protagonist finally getting rid of his bad-self.
Now, I've had the pleasure to listen to this album during a thunderstorm, and it made the experience A WHOLE LOT BETTER. It was like the most perfect combo. It blew my mind. But anyways, I rambled on too much. Deconstruction is a glorious album if you take it slowly and take the time to listen to it multiple times. Ridicolous.