STRAPPING YOUNG LAD: Alien

Produced by Devin Townsend

Released: 2005

When Devin Townsend resurrected Strapping Young Lad in 2003 the reaction that album received was pretty lukewarm to put it mildly and there was plenty of people who were prepared to believe that the perfection achieved with 1997's City really was some kind of fluke. Fast-forward 18 months or so and without too many of his other recording endeavours muddying his creative waters Townsend may well have delivered something that may well be City's equal if it doesn't actually surpass it.

Alien kicks off the way all such things do, with ‘Imperial’ rising up as a relentless and crushing wall of sound played at breakneck speed. Following that is the sensory overload of the almost impenetrable ‘Skesis’, a titan of a track with a fortress of guitars and synths. Then the appropriately-named ‘Shitstorm’ is piled on top of it like a weapon of mass sonic destruction. Gene Hoglan’s incredible drumming keeps the madness from veering off course and Townsend’s frantic vocals scream lyrics that don’t seem to make much sense but follow the same basic concept of being pissed-off about something.

If that doesn’t sound too far removed from what SYL has thrown up in the past then you’d be right, except that from this moment the album becomes significantly more interesting than just barely-controlled noise terror. Quite suddenly, the album slows down and drops into a heavy groove in the shape of ‘Love?’, which goes into strong contention as one of the best songs SYL ever put together. A couple of tracks further along and ‘We Ride’ erupts like the most violent outburst of rage ever recorded but then Alien reaches its most transcendent moment with ‘Two Weeks’, a somewhat abstract, meandering acoustic song that recalls Townsend’s Terria opus.

The proposed Tom Jones cover was dropped because the band thought it would interfere with the flow of the album and I have no doubt they were right; subsequently, this was replaced by the 13-minute soundscape ‘Infodump’, a meandering swirl of white noise, tape loops and demonic vocals vaguely reminiscent of something that Namanax would do (only much less threatening) and similar to the style of Townsend’s own Devlab project from the year before.

Production-wise, Alien is a monster, with the murk of earlier works replaced by a gleaming sound and featuring a huge choir of backing voices that includes members of Zimmer's Hole and Tourettes. Some versions also came with a bonus live track and a DVD featuring a “making of” doco and some video clips, all adding up to over two hours of SYL madness.

This is the best-produced and most diverse Strapping Young Lad album ever, a masterpiece of intensity that rivals City as SYL's best.

1. Imperial
2. Skeksis
3. Shitstorm
4. Love?
5. Shine
6. We Ride
7. Possessions
8. Two Weeks
9. Thalamus
10. Zen
11. Info Dump

Rating: 93%