STRAPPING YOUNG LAD: The New Black

Produced by Devin Townsend

Released: 2006

There are perhaps few more anticipated things among many metal fans than a new Strapping Young Lad album, yet if Devin Townsend’s musings about taking a break from music are to believed then The New Black could well be the final chapter in the SYL story for some time to come, or possibly ever. Such a shame it is then that this last album didn’t quite come up to the same standard long expected of Strapping Young Lad.

The New Black is as close as anything Townsend’s had a hand in to being half-arsed. Everything is just as manic and teetering on the brink of complete chaos as always, but in the end one is left with the feeling that on The New Black the band is playing it very much by the numbers and comes across as a bit forced. The presence of complete throwaway tracks like “You Suck” and “Fucker” bare this out. SYL’s lyrics are often far from profound, but an entire song that repeats little more than “Hell yeah we fuckin’ suck” is perhaps pushing the envelope a bit far.

Of course, as always there are also distinct highlights. Early in the piece we are treated to “The Antiproduct” with its nice jazzy section featuring some understated trombone and the fierce but melodic “Decimator” is a great opener. Eight years after it first appeared on No Sleep til Bedtime, “Far Beyond Metal” finally gets the full studio treatment, complete with guest vocals from GWAR’s Oderus Urungus, and is a clear stand-out (read: best track on the album). But elsewhere The New Black suffers from just sounding too much like earlier albums, right down to the typically clinical, overbearing production.

Townsend’s vocals are characteristically diverse and the inclusion of guest singers on a couple of tracks is a cool touch, but overall the album simply doesn’t have the impact of previous issues. It’s almost as if the worst had happened and Devin had either finally driven himself out of ideas or was pandering to fanbase expectations and if either was the case then taking a break is probably the best thing he could have done.

1. Decimator
2. You Suck
3. The Anti-product
4. Monument
5. Wrong Side
6. Hope
7. Far Beyond Metal
8. Fucker
9. Almost Again
10. Polyphony
11. The New Black

Rating: 72%

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD: City

Produced by Devin Townsend

Released: 1997

What do you do when your previous album sold a stunning 120 copies in the US alone, you have no band, no money and you're sleeping on your A&R guy's sofa eating noodles and margarine and listening to Morbid Angel and Shihad? If you're Devin Townsend, you write some of the angriest and most intense heavy metal music of all, get Gene Hoglan to play drums for you and record them as City.

City really is the last word in angry music, created not by a group on its way to being comfortable millionaires pissed off about being heckled or getting bad reviews but by a frustrated genius existing hand-to-mouth for months. Sure, there's some other guys who play on this, but City is Devin Townsend's album; it is his energy, vision and rage that drives it smashing through every pre-conceived idea about intensity and extremity. To the untrained ear or a first-time listener, this will be nothing but a ceaseless cacophony as Townsend crams every space with as much noise as possible. It sounds at first like extremity for the sake of it, but as overwhelming as the relentless, multi-tracked guitar onslaught is, repeated listenings reveal Strapping Young Lad's genius for infectious hooks and melodies that surprise with their ability to seemingly come from nowhere and add further dimensions to the music. There is also Townsend's bizarre sense of irony, with his minimalistic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics both evoking his frustrations and rage and poking fun at the ludicrous extremity of metal.

And, as mentioned several times already, City is ludicrously extreme. "Oh My Fucking God" is one of the heaviest, most full-on and over-the-top examples of industrial grind ever recorded with Townsend's apoplectic vocals pushing the envelope into the realms of the truly insane. Similarly, "All Hail the New Flesh" and "Detox" are triumphs of noise and total chaos but even there a cleverly-timed keyboard surge or poppy melody will suddenly burst forth, making you wonder how they ever got there in the first place. "Home Nucleonics" is another crushing barrage but in "AAA" a monstrous groove takes precedence until "Underneath the Waves" unleashes further mayhem. The Cop Shoot Cop cover "Room 429" gets in the way a bit, somewhat breaking the flow of the album because the epic, surging "Spirituality" would be the perfect way to come in after the layered screaming of "Underneath the Waves". A minor quibble however, because CSC was a major inspiration for City so the homage is somewhat deserved.

This is an exhausting and overwhelming work, a masterpiece that combines both bombast and subtlety in a curious and staggering unison and a statement in the extreme that may never be matched.

1. Velvet Kervorkian
2. All Hail the New Flesh
3. Oh My Fucking God
4. Detox
5. Home Nucleonics
6. AAA
7. Underneath the Waves
8. Room 429
9. Spirituality

Rating: 100%

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%