InfinityReleased October 22, 1998
Tracklisting:
1. Truth
2. Christeen
3. Bad Devil
4. War
5. Soul Driven (aka “Soul Driven Cadillac”)
6. Ants
7. Colonial Boy (aka “Wild Colonial Boy”)
8. Dynamics (aka “Life is All Dynamics”)
9. Unity
10. Noisy Pink Bubbles
Bonus Tracks:
11. Sister (Live Acoustic)
12. Hide Nowhere (Live Acoustic)
13. ManPersonnel:
Devin Townsend - Guitar, Bass, Vocals, Keyboards
Gene Hoglan - Drums
Additional Personnel:
Christian Olde Wolbers - Upright Bass (Bad Devil)
Andy Codrington - Trombone (Bad Devil)
Jamie Meyer - Piano Solo (Bad Devil)
Erin Townsend, Lyn Townsend, Dave Townsend, Naomi, Tanya Evans, Lara Uthoff, Chris Valagao, Brad Jackson, Jennifer Lewis - Backup Vocals
I’m gonna try my best to summarize this period, but given the nature of it, I think perhaps it’s better to hear Dev himself explain it. Here’s a link to his podcast about this album where he talks about what he was going through around this time:
https://youtu.be/6hCr8brn40YDev started writing Infinity after finishing City and Ocean Machine. During this time, he started experimenting with psychedelic drugs. His experiences on these drugs led him to believe he was hearing messages from aliens and from God. Soon Infinity became more than just another record to him. It became a mission from God. His mental state continued to worsen, and he eventually developed somewhat of a messiah complex and started seeing humans as nothing more than “water-based pieces of sentient meat”. Dev was admitted into a psychiatric hospital in December 1997, where he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
After being discharged from the hospital, he continued working on Infinity. Infinity was recorded at Red Stripe Studios in Vancouver, where Dev would spend days on end working on it, neglecting his friends and family. Dev played most of the instruments, and Gene Hoglan played drums. Bad Devil features Christian Olde Wolbers(Formerly of Fear Factory) on standup bass, Andy Codrington on trombone, and Jame Meyer on piano. Dev mixed the record twice, once at Red Stripe and again at Mushroom Studios. He tried combing both mixes, but only succeeded in accidentally making the whole record Mono.
The sound of Infinity isn’t as gloomy as Ocean Machine. It’s a brighter, more upbeat record for the most part. I find the production on this record interesting. I like it, but with all the reverb and sparkly-sounding synthesizers, to me it always sounds like there’s another album playing in the background.
Some notes about some of the songs...
Truth was written by Dev in one take.
Ginger Wildheart is credited with co-writing Christeen. In reality he didn’t contribute to the song, but according to Dev he served more as an inspiration for the song.
Bad Devil was written during SYL’s first tour in Australia.
War comes from a demo “Morwar”(track 5 on Ass-Sordid Demos I), recorded in 1996.
Soul Driven contains the line “Sing Maute Dingas!” Maute Dingas is the name Dev gave to a Moth in Australia.
Ants is weird. Most of this album is weird. I like it.
The special edition of Infinity includes 3 bonus tracks; 2 acoustic tracks from Official Bootleg 2000, and the song Man, from Ass-Sordid Demos I.
A music video was filmed for Christeen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcfDxq8Zw5AIn 2023, Dev announced a remaster of Infinity for it's 25th anniversary. This remaster was released November 24, 2023 and includes the 3 bonus tracks, and 4 additional songs from the Christeen EP. This remaster has new artwork, with Dev recreating the original cover.
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Originally, Infinity had a different tracklisting with some different songs:
1. Truth
2. Processional
3. Christeen
4. War
5. Soul Driven
6. OM
7. Dynamics
8. UnityThe songs Processional and OM would end up on…
Christeen + Four Demos EPReleased in 1998
Tracklisting:
1. Christeen
2. OM
3. Sit in the Mountain
4. Processional
a. Star Child Rise
b. Welcome Home
c. Metamorph
d. Infinite Waltz
5. Love-LoadThe Christeen EP contains the titular song and 4 leftover tracks from the Infinity sessions. There’s some real gems on here, namely OM and Sit in the Mountain.
Processional has some cool moments, but definitely needed some more work. The final section of Processional, “Infinite Waltz”, would later appear at the end of The Mighty Masturbator from the 2011 album Deconstruction.
Love-Load is…something. It was originally a remix titled "I Look at the Love Load (I Need Nobody But Me)". which Dev contributed to an EP by Unit:187.
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As previously stated, Dev put SYL on hiatus in 1998 for the sake of his mental health and to focus on his solo work. But they only took a break from recording new material. Jed, Gene, and Byron were still part of Dev’s solo band until the Devin Townsend Band came about in 2002. And during this time the band would still play SYL songs in addition to Dev’s solo stuff. They wouldn’t do another record as SYL until the 2003 self-titled album, but SYL was still active as a touring band for years during this “hiatus”.
Here’s some footage of Dev and the band live in Japan on February 26, 1999:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXregOyzvPg&t=927sThe next show of the tour, on February 27, 1999, was recorded and released as…
Official Bootleg 2000 Full band set recorded February 27, 1999 in Tokyo, Japan
Acoustic set recorded January 14, 2000 in Vancouver, BC
Released in - you guessed it - 2000
Tracklisting:
Full Band Set
1. Unity (Live)
2. Seventh Wave (Live)
3. Regulator (Live)
4. Truth (Live)
5. War (Live)
6. Bad Devil (Live)
7. Christeen (Live)
8. Hide Nowhere (Live)
9. Happy Birthday Jed
10. Detox (Live)
11. Fake Punk (Live)
12. Goof Off*
13. Oh My Fucking God*
Acoustic:
14. Sister (Acoustic)
15. Hide Nowhere (Acoustic)
16. A Little Background*
17. L.A. (Acoustic)*
18. My Beautiful Little Raincoat (Acoustic)*
19. Noisy Pink Bubbles (Acoustic)
20. Night (Acoustic)* - Omitted from CD version
Personnel:
Devin Townsend - Guitar, Vocals
Jed Simon - Guitar, Backup Vocals
Byron Stroud - Bass
Gene Hoglan - Drums
That’s right, Dream Theater isn’t the only DT with an Official Bootleg.
Official Bootleg 2000 was released independently through HevyDevy Records some time in 2000. First on CD and VHS, and eventually on DVD. The first part of the bootleg is a recording of a Devin/SYL show in Tokyo in February of 1999, on Jed’s Birthday. The second part is a solo acoustic show Dev did in Vancouver in early 2000. This release has been out of print for years, but luckily you can watch the whole thing on YouTube. I managed to find a copy of the CD version on eBay a few years ago. Still hoping to get my hands on the VHS/DVD one day.
https://youtu.be/MGxQfblrzboThe full band set is a typical show from this era. The band would play a set of Dev’s solo material, and a set of SYL material. Only a few songs are included from the SYL set.
The acoustic show features some rarer Dev songs like L.A. and Noisy Pink Bubbles, as well as a song only found on this release: My Beautiful Little Raincoat.