ZILTOID THE OMNISCIENT

I'm not that big a fan of the music Devin Townsend, but this is one of my favorite progressive metal albums. Townsend fires layers of metal guitars enhanced by a broad spectrum of synths. The main reason I like this album is however the song-writing. It's a concept album, with a crazy sci-fi story-line that deserves its own comic. Townsend plays all instruments and uses his voice in diverse ways to perform a list of characters (Captain Spectacular, Ziltoid the Omniscient, the Planet Smasher, the Omnidimensional Creator). Whereas the whole idea might seem like a crazy idea, there's actually some pristine drama to be found in this story. Ziltoid searches (violently) for the perfect cup of coffee to allow him to travel through time. On his journey he meets un-expected resistance, rejection by others powers and most notably his own vulnerability. This leads him to search for a higher meaning, which will again confront him with his own limited meaning in the wider scope of things. The listener eventually starts feeling for Ziltoid and the predicament of melancholy vagueness he is left with on the final song 'The Greys'. The whole story then turns out to be a day-dream of a barista who sleeps on his meaningless job. There are, perhaps beyond Townsend's own intend, many philosophical layers here to consider, whilst it still is a very comical journey through rather intense progressive space metal. The electronic drums don't do the music much good, but surely this interesting record must be a masterpiece of some kind.