DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT: Ki

Produced by Devin Townsend

Released: May 22

It was always expected that Devin Townsend would make a return to music. For Townsend to quit making music would be just as unlikely as Stephen King giving up writing or Adam Sandler changing his haircut, so it was never a case of if Dr Skinny would be back but when and what it would be like. Ki is merely the first part in a series of four albums that will all be starkly different from one another (the second of which is being recorded as I write), and is in itself far removed from anything Townsend has done before. The closest this comes to anything is Ocean Machine, but even that was intense and bombastic in comparison.

According to Townsend, Ki is something of an ode to sobriety and freedom from chemical dependence. The emphasis is on space and ambience, clean, lilting guitars, quiet vocals and laid-back jams that at times are barely even rock and infinitely distant from the crushing walls-of-sound thrown up by Strapping Yound Lad (Devy promises that the third album of this series, Devastation, will be his heaviest ever). There's very little distortion of any kind and the heaviest it gets is in the last half of "Distruptr" when Devin's voice becomes a growl and the chugging guitars take on a menacing tone. Otherwise, Ki is very much an exploration of progressive ambient rock, rather like a modern imaging of Pink Floyd's pre-Dark Side of the Moon era, but without the trippy psychedelia and self-indulgent sections. There is also a bluesier aspect to Townsend's playing, most evident in the smoky "Trainfire", a ricketty rock n roll number that one could almost picture being done by Elvis or Johnny Cash.

It's unlikely that anyone could have predicted that even Devin Townsend would make an album like this as it is such an off-the-wall departure even for him. While Ki is definitely an interesting release, it's not exactly a gripping one. At best, it's an unpredictable detour into early progressive rock and at worst a little directionless and boring (aspects which are, in essence, two sides of the same coin), but at the very least it is vastly different from the usual rock and metal fodder.

1. A Monday
2. Coast
3. Disruptr
4. Gato
5. Terminal
6. Heaven Send
7. Ain't Never Gonna Win...
8. Winter
9. Trainfire
10. Lady Helen
11. Ki
12. Quiet Riot
13. Demon League

Rating: 65%

HARDCORE SUPERSTAR: Beg For It

Released: June

Hardcore Superstar's Dreamin' in a Casket marked the final stop on the band's journey from punkish glam rock upstarts to genuine heavy metal hellraisers. It was a raucous volume of hard-hitting rock n roll that didn't let up from go to woah, brazen, aggressive, reckless and heavy. In short, it rocked like a motherfucker. So it was always going to be interesting to see how they would follow up such a rollicking piece of work.

In the end, it appears that Hardcore Superstar has gone for safety, because Beg For It is a rather more melodic and formulaic album than its predecessor. There's somewhat more predictability in its mixture of harder upbeat tracks, of which Casket had plenty, and slower melodic ones, of which the last album had none. Rock n roll swagger continues to abound and there's some truly fantastic guitar playing from new guitarist Vic Zino, who almost melts the fretboard a couple of time. But there is also less of the immediacy and urgency of delivery that made their last effort such a corker. It's noticeably less heavy too, marking a shift back toward the more rock direction they were taking on No Regrets. The title track has already become a charting hit for them in Sweden so it could be they are about to hit pay-dirt, but it's ironic that this is the heaviest track on the album.

Beg for It is still a pretty solid piece of work, but less of a force than the last couple. The spaghetti-western inspired intro track is a waste and there is fewer real highlights, although none of the songs are in any way bad either. In the wake of the heavy metal thunder that was Dreamin' in a Casket, Beg for It is rather less satisfying, but a pretty worthewhile listen all the same.

1. This Worm's for Ennio
2. Beg for It
3. Into Debauchery
4. Shades of Grey
5. Nervous Breakdown
6. Hope for a Normal Life
7. Dont Care 'bout Your Bad Behaviour
8. Remove My Brain
9. Spit it Out
10. Illegal Fun
11. Take 'em All Out
12. Innocent Boy

Rating: 72%

HEAVEN AND HELL: The Devil You Know

Produced by Ronnie James Dio, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi

Released: May 5

Heaven and Hell is a band that has a lot to live up to. Almost 30 years ago this line-up (with Bill Ward in place of Vinny Appice) recorded one of the best heavy metal albums of all, completely revitalising the career of a band that was on the verge of being relegated to rock's history file. Even when these four elder statesmen of metal reconvened there was speculation a full album would ensue, and at last such a beast has emerged. The last time these guys got together the result was less than spectacular, hamstrung by clashing egos and old wounds, but that was long ago. Now, it seems like something that was just meant to be.

In some ways, The Devil You Know is an apt title for this album. When those gigantic riffs come crushing down and that golden voice comes in, it's like slipping into a comfortable pair of old shoes. Yet this is also darker, heavier and gloomier than anything these people have recorded in decades, and that's saying something. And perhaps because of this, I found this album to be a bit of a grower, expecting it to be more like Heaven and Hell. Instead, this is a thoroughly doom-laden volume, with very little of the upbeat rock aspects that came with the Dio-fronted Black Sabbath. Gone too are the themes of optimism and empowerment; Dio's lyrics were always strange but there was something uplifting about them. Here it sounds like he's woken up to a world where everything is black, and he's decided to leave off the analogies and present the darkness as it is. It's not until track seven, the oddly-titled "Eating the Cannibals", where the band breaks out of the slow, almost moribund trudge through the gloom they take from the moment the album begins. Because there's no obvious rock-out hits here like "Die Young" or "Neon Knights", it may take a couple of listens or more for The Devil You Know to sink its hooks in, but when it does it will become apparent just how powerful and pertinent this album is.

The Devil You Know is an ominous album, and very much one for its time. Like the first Black Sabbath releases, The Devil You Know is a mirror of the zeitgeist, a bell tolling doom in dark and troubled times. This is one of the year's best.

1. Atom and Evil
2. Fear
3. Bible Black
4. Double the Pain
5. Rock N Roll Angel
6. The Turn of the Screw
7. Eating the Cannibals
8. Follow the Tears
9. Neverwhere
10. Breaking into Heaven

Rating: 95%

EMPIRES OF EDEN: Songs of War and Vengeance

Produced by Stu Marshall

Released: 2009

Apart from the occasional release from people like Chris Brooks, Australia has been virtually unchartered territory for the shred album. This latest project from Paindivision's Stu Marshall goes some way to address the deficit, with what can only be described as a spectacular display of fretboard histrionics from some excellent metal guitarists.

To bring this vision to life, Marshall has gathered around him a virtual army of the region's metal talent that includes members of LORD, Vanishing Point, Argument Soul, Crimsonfire and Transcending Mortality. This provides some truly jaw-dropping moments on a pretty well-rounded album of heavy melodic metal infused with immense amounts of wrist-breaking lead guitar playing. It isn't just the shred that makes Songs of War and Vengeance a good album however, because as Marshall has shown in his other bands, he understands the craft of songwriting too.

In this area he's been assisted by three talented melodic metal vocalists in the shapes of Louie Gorgievski from Crimsonfire, ex-Transcending Mortality singer Mike Zoias and Chris Ninni, all of whom really show what they're made of here. Gorgievski's vocals were the only real highlight on his own band's album, and on Songs of War and Vengeance they are much better. Likewise, Zoias' gives a somewhat less self-conscious performance than previously. It's almost as if the epic nature of this album has caused everyone involved to really step out of their skins. Chris Porcianko of Vanishing Point offers the most understated contribution, but it makes for stunning contrast with the blazing solos from Marshall and Thundasteel's Ben Thomas that immediately precede it. Indeed, the guitar wrangling is insane: this is a primer for all budding shredders. The fret-blitzing from LORD duo Lord Tim and Mark Furtner is nuts, rivalling anything they've ever done, and "Fires of Torment" is loaded with some monster playing as Marshall vies for dominance with Akira Takada of Cerberus and Yoshiyaka Maruyama from Argument Soul.

As mentioned, Songs of War and Vengeance doesn't let melody and shred get in the way of heaviness or substance either. These songs would stand alone even without the ridiculous face-melting solos. If there is a criticism, some of the melodies seemed a bit recycled here and there and the final track didn't really grab me like the rest of the album, but overall Empires of Eden compares more than favourably with any melodic shredfest you can name.

1. Dawn of Fire
2. New Hope
3. Empires of Eden
4. The Reckoning
5. Through Eternity
6. Scars of Innocence
7. Dark Religion
8. Blood of an Angel
9. Fires of Torment
10. Black Endings/Echos of Oblivion

Rating: 89%

MEDUZA: Now and Forever

Released: 2002

The very name of this Swedish band is a dead giveaway as to what they're going to sound like, and if you guessed melodic Euro-power metal then you would be spot on the mark. Add a goodly helping of Malmsteen-like shredding to the formula and Meduza's picture becomes clearer and that, dear readers, is as plain as a nose on a face.

Now and Forever is yet another release from the generic European power metal school where the only necessary qualifications seem to be a singer with a high-range vocal style and a spectacularly flashy guitar player. Of course, it isn't that Meduza is a bad band, but their wholly unoriginal and less than inspired approach to a genre that's been painfully beaten to death makes them a patently unspectacular one, a band that seems content to just grind along the track already blazed for them by the likes of Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica without really branching off to explore any new territory of their own.

If you're into this type of thing, you'll probably like Meduza but they'll hardly set your world afire.

1. Now and Forever
2. Holy Ground
3. Hounds of Hell
4. Sleep
5. Touch the Sky
6. I Will Rise
7. Twilight of My Mind
8. Shed No Tears
9. Curse of Pharaoh
10. Land of Forgotten Dreams
11. Burn in Hell

Rating: 30%

ROCKSTEADY: ...To the Rescue!

Released: 2009

Rocksteady is a heavy rock combo from Bendigo who have apparently been carving out a good name for themselves in that area of late. If “...To the Rescue!” is any indicator of what these guys are like live, then I imagine a show full of ridiculous rock poses and antics as if they were the best band of all time!


To call this metal is truly a bit of a stretch but anyone who loves the guitar-driven party rock of bands like Poison and Van Halen could seriously get into this. Rocksteady keep it simple: catchy rock tunes about rock n’ roll fantasies, chicks, rocking out and generally having a good time. If you’re looking for depth then have no fear. “...To the Rescue” is as shallow as a wading pool and as much fun as if you filled one up with beer and then chucked in a few bikini girls. Vocalist Lovegun sounds a bit like a rawer, edgier version of Nic Cester and guitarists JD and Flash Craig keep the catchy riffs pumping.

Rocksteady won’t win any awards for originality but they certainly know how to knock out some upbeat, fist-pumping rock songs. You could do far worse than check these party animals out.

1. On Your Knees
2. Welcome to Dumpsville
3. Wish in One Hand
4. Jack in a Box
5. To the Rescue
6. Untitled

Rating: 72%