PHYSICIST

I believe this is a pretty underrated album by Devin. While Infinity and Terria are praised by almost everyone, Physicist usually gets a lot of shit. But in my eyes, is as good as these other two or even better. I've always believed that Infinity starts off pretty strong but falls around the mid-part of the album, and the same happens with Terria, which has a lot of ballads in the final section.

On the other hand, Physicist is solid as a rock. Okey, maybe not all the songs are perfect ("Material", "Devoid" and "Irish Maiden" are rather meh and forgettable), but the weaker ones are sparced across the album, which makes the listen a lot easier. The two other things that people tend to complain about Physicist are the production and the vocals. I understand that the production is not the best (the drums in particular sound very very weak) and that's a dissapointing coming from Devin, but I really like the vocal performances that he did here. They aren't the best he has done, but they have a raw power that makes them feel unique in his career.

As for the songs, the opener "Namaste" is an absolute banger while mantaining at the same time a melodic vibe to it. This combination between aggressiveness and poppy is present across all the album in other songs suchs as "Kingdom" (an absolute classic, although the later version is better), "The Complex" (another one of my favourites) and "Jupiter". "Victim" on his part is reminiscent of Strapping Young Lad, something that isn't surprising, as the lineup for this album is the same one.

And the two songs that I enjoy the most probably are "Death", the most dark and aggressive song of the album, with riffs that seem from a Morbid Angel track, and "Planet Rain". I believe that specially the later is a must in Devin's catalog, being a long and epic track that conserves the most the prog metal nature that he is known for.

Physicist is not a perfect album by any means, but it definitively deserves better. If you're talking early Devin you can't go wrong. Yeah, there are albums that are better than others, but he would not make a bad one until he took the name Devin Townsend Project, but that is a story for another day.