The Devin Townsend Project - Z²Released October 27, 2014
Dev first talked about doing a sequel to Ziltoid the Omniscient in 2009. This album, titled Z², was meant to be his next album after the conclusion of the first 4 DTP albums. Other projects like Epicloud and Casualties of Cool got in the way, and he wanted to get those albums out of his system first. Over time his interest in Z² started to wane, and at one point it seemed like the sequel was abandoned, with him saying that “humor and metal doesn’t really work”. At some point he came around to the idea and put together an album.
A DOUBLE album.
Disc 1: Sky Blue
Disc 2: Dark Matters
Despite it being a double album and collectively called Z², Dark Matters is the only disc that has anything to do with Ziltoid. Sky Blue is not a concept album and is not connected to the story in any way.
Both discs were recorded in LA and at Dev’s home studio, and they both have the same main lineup of the DTP plus Anneke, as well as the new addition of Mike St. Jean as the keyboardist for the band.
Dev invited fans to sing on the album as the “Universal Choir”. He sent out snippets of sections of 3 songs from the album (Z², Dimension Z, and Before We Die) and asked fans to submit recordings of themselves singing, and all the submissions were combined into one giant choir.
Original Snippets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfoBg_YyhfEUniversal Choir:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk-tMqV_0X0 Complete list of everyone who contributed:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220118011602/http://universalchoir.insideoutmusic.com/ Some videos of the making of Z²
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_AGVF5YuSPK9V1patknhRlAC6_TV_QoR Z² was released on October 27th, 2014. Shortly before it's release, Dev chose to remix and alter some songs on both discs. But by that point, the original mix had already gone out to reviewers. The new mix is what you'll hear on the CD, streaming, and iTunes, but the original mix leaked a couple of weeks before the official release. There's several differences between the official and leaked versions that I'll go over.
——————————————————————————————————————————————
Sky Blue
Tracklisting:
1. Rejoice
2. Fallout
3. Midnight Sun
4. A New Reign
5. Universal Flame
6. Warrior
7. Sky Blue
8. Silent Militia
9. Rain City
10. Forever
11. Before We Die
12. The Ones Who LovePersonnel:
Devin Townsend - Guitar, Vocals, Keyboards
Dave Young - Guitars, Keyboards
Brian “Beav” Waddell - Bass
Ryan Van Poederooyen - Drums
Mike St. Jean - Keyboards
Anneke Van Giersbergen - Vocals
Additional Personnel:
Universal Choir
When Dev showed Z² to the record label, they weren’t sure what to make of it. After the success of Epicloud, they wanted another album in that vein. Dev and the label reached a compromise, and Z² would be a double album, with the first disc being another Epicloud-style album, and the second disc being the Ziltoid sequel.
There’s not a whole lot to say about Sky Blue. It’s yet another album of accessible Dev material, just like Epicloud and Addicted before it. When Z² came out, I spent much more time with Dark Matters than Sky Blue. I initially wrote Sky Blue off as just an inferior attempt to redo Epicloud. But as my opinion of Dark Matters has worsened over time, my opinion on Sky Blue has only gone up. I think this is by far the better disc on this album, and a really underrated album overall. Not Dev’s best, and certainly not his best in this style, but still solid.
Some highlights for me are Fallout, Universal Flame, Rain City, and Forever.
A New Reign was remixed by Dev for his Quarantine Project in 2020.
The title track is inspired by “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” by Usher
Silent Militia is inspired by “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive.
Rain City has a callback to Bastard, from Ocean Machine.
The leaked version of Sky Blue has a few differences from the official version. Some big, some little.
The biggest difference is on Fallout. Anneke sings the lead vocals on the official version, but Dev sings on the leaked version.
Look, Anneke is great. But I prefer Dev’s version by a lot. The DTP played it live a few times with Dev on vocals, and he clearly struggled with it.
Leaked version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBFhgNa9NoY Live with Dev on Vocals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVICIEPJzoM The official version of Warrior starts with a child saying “I’m a warrior!”. This is absent on the leaked version.
The leaked version of Silent Militia has an instrumental intro, but the official version begins with a version the chorus.
There’s some other slight differences here and there, like slightly longer or totally different transitions between songs, but the ones listed are the major ones. My personal version of Sky Blue in my digital library is a combination of my preferred versions from the leak and official release.
——————————————————————————————————————————————
Dark Matters
Tracklisting:
1. Z²
2. From Sleep Awake
3. Ziltoidian Empire
4. War Princess
5. Deathray
6. March of the Poozers
7. Wandering Eye
8. Earth
9. Ziltoid Goes Home
10. Through the Wormhole*
11. Dimension Z
* - Omitted from the “Raw” Version of the albumPersonnel:
Devin Townsend - Guitar, Vocals, Keyboards
Dave Young - Guitars, Keyboards
Brian “Beav” Waddell - Bass
Ryan Van Poederooyen - Drums
Mike St. Jean - Keyboards
Anneke Van Giersbergen - Vocals
Additional Personnel:
Bill Courage - Narrator
Universal Choir
Dominique Lenore Persi - Vocals (“Blattaria, the War Princess”)
Chris Jericho - Vocals (“Captain Spectacular”)
Mark Cimino - Vocals (“Poozer”)
Chris Levitt - Vocals (“Planet Smasher”)
Dark Matters is a “sequel” to the first Ziltoid album. I say “sequel” because it’s not really a direct continuation of Z
1. You can understand the story of DM without having heard Z
1. Musically, DM is similar to Z
1. The significant difference being that there’s a full band and a real drummer this time around. Despite it being a sequel, there’s no reprises of any musical themes or lyrics from Z
1.
DM is much more dialogue-focused than Z
1. The story is narrated by voice actor Bill Courage, and features characters played by Chris Jericho (Yes, THAT Chris Jericho), Dominique Lenore Persi (Vocalist of Stolen Babies), and Mark Cimino (Guitarist from Addicted).
Dev uploaded 3 episodes of “ZTV” to YouTube. These videos act as a prelude to Dark Matters.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_AGVF5YuSPJW__e7WCncTkctFsF8pDxf Dev also did a series of radio shows as Ziltoid for Team Rock Radio playing a variety of music, from Katy Perry to Gorguts. I have all of these shows saved if anybody wants to hear them.
Let’s get into the story of Dark Matters…
The end of Z
1 revealed that the events of the album were nothing more than the daydream of a barista. Dark Matters reveals that Ziltoid is in fact real, and has become a celebrity on Earth. Ziltoid has stolen a Poozer: A creature from the planet Titan and child of Blattaria, the War Princess. The Poozer escapes Ziltoid and returns to Blattaria and informs her about Ziltoid and his obsession with coffee. She gathers an army of Poozers and launches an invasion of Earth to convert the humans into Poozers and steal all of their coffee. Ziltoid is blamed for the attack, but Captain Spectacular strikes a deal with him. In exchange for his freedom, Ziltoid summons the Planet Smasher to fight back against Blattaria. The counterattack doesn’t go as planned. Captain Spectacular is killed, but not before revealing that he and Ziltoid are half-brothers. Ziltoid begins to sing, enraging the Planet Smasher, who opens up a wormhole which sucks in Blattaria and Ziltioid. The war is over, the humans are free, and all of mankind sings a song to celebrate their victory. Meanwhile, far away from Earth, Ziltoid and Blattaria have been transported to a moon made of bones and dust (sound familiar?).
Did you get all of that? Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get real…
To quote Ultimetalhead in his writeup of this album in the original thread:
Man, what happened here?
Sequels are often disappointing, and Dark Matters is no exception. For as long as Dev had been talking about this album, I think we all expected something…better? I mean, what is this even about? Z
1 was about Dev reckoning with his past and personifying a side of his personality he couldn’t ignore. DM is just a cheesy sci-fi story. That’s all well and good, but if there’s some deeper meaning, it’s lost on me. You can tell that Dev’s heart wasn’t in this album, and it only serves to fulfill an arbitrary obligation. But an obligation to whom? Z
1 didn’t need a sequel, the label wasn’t asking for one, and I don’t think fans were clamoring for one were either. So what was the purpose of this album? You could ask that same question about Z
1, but at least there’s an answer to that question. Dark Matters just exists…because.
I remember enjoying DM a lot when it first came out, but my opinion on it has gone down significantly over time. It came out in October of 2014, right after I moved out and started college. Z² dominated my car’s CD player for the next 2 months. As much as I don’t care for Dark Matters, it’s undoubtedly part of the soundtrack to that period of my life. Revisiting the album for this writeup, it’s undeniable how much weaker this is compared to the rest of his catalog.
Dark Matters isn’t 100% bad. The production and performances are all great,
There’s some highlights here, like Ziltoidian Empire, Earth, and Ziltoid Goes Home.
But there’s plenty of clunkers, too.
War Princess is too repetitive.
Deathray might be the most throwaway song Dev has ever written.
March of the Poozers is ok, and it was a live staple for a long time, but I don’t ever need to hear it again.
Wandering Eye seems out of place.
Dimension Z wants to be a triumphant ending, but it feels unearned.
Dev considered redoing the songs Death (from Physicist) and Dinosaurs (from Contain Us) for Dark Matters, but decided not to.
War Princess is the first time (and only time to my knowledge) that Dev has used an 8 string guitar, tuned CGCGCGCE. That’s low.
Dev said he wrote the “heaviest thing he’s ever written” for Dark Matters, but it didn’t make it onto the album. It’s unknown what that song is or if it ended up on a future album.
The clocks in the beginning of the title track are taken from Pier, from Casualties of Cool.
The 3-disc version of Z² came with a “Raw” version of Dark Matters with all dialogue and narration removed. Through the Wormhole was left off of this version as it consists entirely of dialogue and narration.
As for the leaked vs official versions of Dark Matters, I’ve only ever noticed one difference.
There’s a line of narration in the title track at 2:52 that was removed from the official version.
“Z². Zed Squared. Episode 2. When we last met Ziltoid, it was thought he was merely a figment of our fertile imaginations. As it turns out, he is VERY real. Welcome.”
——————————————————————————————————————————————
The Devin Townsend Project - Live at Loud Park 2013Recorded October 19, 2013
Tracklisting:
1. Truth
2. Regulator
3. Christeen
4. Kingdom
5. Liberation
6. War
7. Juular
8. GracePersonnel:
Devin Townsend - Guitar, Vocals
Dave Young - Guitars
Brian “Beav” Waddell - Bass
Ryan Van Poederooyen - Drums
The Japanese version of Z² came with a DVD of the DTP’s performance at Loud Park in Japan in 2013. Not much to say about this. The only reason I’m mentioning it is because I said I was covering EVERYTHING.
Dev says in his biography that his popularity in Japan has declined significantly over the years, and he hasn’t played in the country since 2017.
Full show:
https://youtu.be/xVX5TbQNtDw ——————————————————————————————————————————————
The Devin Townsend Project - Ziltoid: Live at the Royal Albert HallRecorded April 13, 2015 at the Royal Albert Hall, London
Released November 13, 2015
Tracklisting:
Set 1 - Dark Matters:
1. Z² (Live)
2. From Sleep Awake (Live)
3. Ziltoidian Empire (Live)
4. War Princess (Live)
5. Deathray (Live)
6. March of the Poozers (Live)
7. Wandering Eye (Live)
8. Earth (Live)
9. Ziltoid Goes Home (Live)
10. Through the Wormhole (Live)
11. Dimension Z (Live)
Set 2 - By Request:
12. Namaste (Live)
13. Night (Live)
14. Deadhead (Live)
15. Earth Day (Live)
16. Christeen (Live)
17. Supercrush! (Live)
18. Kingdom (Live)
19. Lucky Animals (Live)
20. Heatwave (Live)
21. Funeral (Live)
22. Bastard (Live)
23. The Death of Music (Live)
24. Universal Flame (Live)Personnel:
Devin Townsend - Guitar, Vocals
Dave Young - Guitars
Brian “Beav” Waddell - Bass, Banjo
Mike St. Jean - Keyboards
Ryan Van Poederooyen - Drums
Dominique Lenore Persi - Vocals (“War Princess”)
Jean Savoie - Bass (Heatwave)
The DTP played a special show at the Royal Albert Hall in April of 2015. The first set was a performance of Dark Matters in it’s entirety, followed by a By Request set. Fans voted for the songs they wanted played via a Facebook poll. This show was preceded by a warmup show with the same setlist at the O2 Academy in Bournemouth 2 days prior.
The band was joined by Dominique Lenore Persi, who plays the War Princess, as well as an 8-piece choir and many costumed performers. Jean Savoie (bassist from Ki and the live Casualties of Cool band) plays bass on Heatwave while Beav plays banjo.
Dark Matters is much better in a live setting, but I still find the album underwhelming. It’s a fun watch regardless, and one of the highlights for me is the song Earth. Just watch Ryan during that song. Dude is a criminally underrated drummer.
The real standout here is the By Request set. You’ve got your mainstays like Deadhead, Supercrush, and Kingdom. As well as some great rarities like Namaste and Earth Day. But the highlight of this set is the Ocean Machine trilogy of Funeral, Bastard, and The Death Music. Incredible set.
The show ended with Universal Flame, a Sky Blue song requested by Dev’s son, who also joined him onstage.
Full Show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbFvDfoSFdc&t=1395s ——————————————————————————————————————————————
The Future of ZiltoidThe end of Dark Matters certainly sets up a potential Z
3, but I wouldn’t expect it any time soon. In one of his Twitch streams Dev showed a folder of demos labeled “Z3”, and he says he would like Samus Paulichelli (one of the drummers on Empath) to play on the album if it ever does happen.
At one point there was a Ziltoid video game in development, along with an EP of the soundtrack for the game, but that was shelved because Dev lost interest.
Topic: The Devin Townsend Discography Thread v2 (Read 27325 times)
